A Patchwork Love
by Diskonnekt
Summary: A year after slaying the Red Death, Hiccup and Astrid have a close friendship, and Stoick is pressuring his son to adopt more responsibilities of the chieftainship, including marriage. Hiccup takes a leap of faith and asks for Astrid's hand, but one night stranded in a tiny grotto together changes everything. Rated M for thematic elements, sexual situations, and language. Hiccstrid
1. Chapter One

**A/N: **_A Patchwork Love _is a twist on the friendship and relationship that develops between Hiccup and Astrid at the end of the first movie and throughout the TV show. The story uses the "arranged marriage" plot, but embellishes it enough with some personal deviations. Although it is classified as Hiccstrid, the path this story will take coupled with its emotional angst will make it appear to be otherwise; I swear they come together in the end.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own How to Train Your Dragon - the movie, TV show, books, or otherwise. Rights belong to DreamWorks Animation and Cressida Cowell.

* * *

_Chapter One_

"The Heir, the Shieldmaiden, and the Dragon"

† • † • †

If there existed one thing - or, rather, one _person_ - who vexed Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third more than any other, he would immediately concede it to be _she_: the highly esteemed Astrid Hofferson.

Fearless Astrid Hofferson personified the term "Viking" in every way imaginable - strong, fierce, bloodthirsty, and a proud warrior from an exceedingly young age. She stood at five feet and five inches and her slender build only carried one hundred and thirty pounds of female terror.

As far as attire went, the girl possessed her own unique style: a glaucous striped sleeveless tunic, woolen dark navy leggings, a thick leather skirt with metal spikes vertically lining each strap and small animal skulls along the waistline, studded spaulders that protected her shoulders, and arm band wrappings extending from her elbows down to her wrists. Astrid did not don a helmet, but chose instead to sport her _kransen_, a leather headband which helped keep her hair situated, save for the fringe of hair concealing her left eye. The _kransen_ identified her marital status as single, and because the mythic_ skjaldmaer_ rarely married and opted to lead a warrior's life, it also represented her intention of becoming a _proper_ shieldmaiden of Berk.

Although she tended to be slimmer than most others in the tribe, one would be a fool to underestimate her strength. Astrid easily became the most agile and fleet-footed fighter of her generation, championing over all the tactless males in hand-to-hand combat. All this and her reputation of being the prettiest teenager in Berk, bolstered by her thin waist, freckled pale complexion, braided flaxen hair, cold aquamarine eyes, and her adamant stance of stubborn independence, summed up the girl into one distinctive and deadly word: _valkyrie_.

If one wanted to find someone in Berk who embodied the complete opposite of Astrid Hofferson, one need look no further than Hiccup Haddock. This boy portrayed a Viking as precisely as a pirate resembled any form of modest civility. He stood at a measly five feet and four inches and tipped the scale at a little over one hundred pounds, his toothpick stature anything but impressive.

Hiccup wore ordinary clothing, nothing particularly remarkable since he harbored no interest in fashion. A long-sleeved celadon dyed tunic with a wide sash wrapped around his hips, a chestnut fur vest, and avocado shaded trousers became his daily wear. He did not own a helmet or any armor whatsoever, nor did he carry any weapons, except for the small dagger he kept inside his sash.

As the son of the mighty chief of the Hairy Hooligan tribe, his vice of being physically incapable of wielding a real weapon - be it a sword, axe, mace, or bola - certainly did not help his image.

The boy's ineptitude and destructive nature labeled him the village screw-up, notorious for his inability to kill even a Terrible Terror, and usually caused more damage during dragon raids than the dragons themselves, which cost the village copious amounts of food and supplies. Messy auburn hair, ghostly emerald eyes with a cascade of freckles masking his cheeks underneath, and a tiny scar on the right side of his chin did not dissuade the moniker that the other villagers slapped onto him: Hiccup the Useless.

Hiccup's frustrations sparked their first embers in the parched woodlands of his mind fourteen full moons ago, on the night Astrid and he rode Toothless together for the first time; the night she kissed him on the cheek, her vague explanation boiled down to "for everything else". Granted, his agitation did not breathe life at that exact point in time - oh no, as he silently gazed at Astrid's retreating figure from the cove, he experienced a complete spectrum of emotions:

Bewilderment.

Awe.

Wonder.

And the tiniest seed of hope which she planted into his cheekbone with that split-second peck of her lips, like a farmer sowing in his field before covering those kernels with the tilled rouge dirt of Hiccup's crimson blush. His stunned bemusement broke brusquely when he noticed Toothless, his onyx-scaled Night Fury of a dragon, sidling up next to him and darting a knowing glance with his chartreuse eyes at Hiccup, his human.

"W-W-What are you looking at?" Hiccup grilled his dragon exasperatedly, his tone equal parts peeved and elated. Toothless grunted a sigh and focused forward again to see Astrid vanish behind the shield in the entrance.

Hiccup really didn't know what to make of the tingling sensation which electrified his face, but from that memorable night onward, he discovered he somehow acquired a new ally - a friend. Of course, no one could replace Toothless as his first true friend, with a reputation of being the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself; however, nothing could trump the tantalyzing rush of having a friend - a companion - who could actually talk back to him in plain Norse. Hiccup didn't realize, though, quite how formidable being "just friends" with his lifelong crush could be.

As always, the dawn appeared darkest before the dawn, including losing his best friend, his father, and his tribe, as Astrid so eloquently put it. But the silver lining around the storm cloud shined through - everything smoothed themselves out and gave Hiccup his almost-fairytale ending, all because of the heated ironing of Astrid's pep talk above the docks. The girl rehashed a part of his inner being the instant he lost himself in despair. In a matter of several surreal hours, the blonde Viking spontaneously matured from his jealous opponent to his only loyal supporter, even in the face of banishment by association.

Then, the battle against the Red Death came to pass, not that he could recollect much of what transpired above the volcanic island anyway. The coma Hiccup lapsed into all but erased it from his memory, save for a few glimpses of Toothless chained underwater, Astrid free-falling through the air, and a large club tail swinging up to greet him. The rank and rotten breath of the Queen still haunted his nightmares, jerking him from his restless slumber in a cold sweat, eyes wild and unseeing. On those distressful nights Hiccup appreciated that Toothless slept in his room the most, the two pairs of green eyes speaking wordless comfort to each other.

The morning Hiccup awoke from his two moon long sleep, however, only further perplexed his jumbled up emotions. The grogginess of shock persisted in clinging to the deepest recesses of his conscience as he stumbled into the effulgent outside. It didn't take long before he recognized the electrifying touch of her lips on his face.

Only this time he _tasted _those honey-smooth lips, rather than merely felt them.

Astrid snagged Hiccup into an embrace, locking around his lower lip, which previously jutted out in a pout. He instinctively closed around her upper lip, without any clue in Hel of what to follow up with, but he didn't need to worry - it lasted three seconds at most...three glorious, unabashed, perfect seconds - something he could definitely get used to.

Unfortunately, that marked the beginning of Hiccup's downward spiral of confusion, because no more than a few hours later and the entire village rumbled with the gossip of Astrid and he. He tried to shove the rather unpleasant rumors to the back of his mind and bury them; the people who spread those should be ashamed. Hiccup could honestly only come up with two possible explanations as to why she kissed him.

The best case scenario, the one he prayed to Odin grasped straws of truth, entailed that she finally grew fond of him and maybe even liked him, however unlikely and far-fetched the thought sounded.

The worst case scenario, the one he feared of its daunting plausibility, entailed that Astrid decided to leech off of his sudden heroic reputation and the village's newfound respect for the russet-haired boy. Many others voiced their opinions of this circumstance, sometimes going as far as labeling her names like "brown-noser", "glory-soaker", and the popular "kiss-up". Hiccup became fairly disturbed by this harsh backlash against his new friend, and made sure he defended her at every opportunity, for he knew all to well the pain that accompanied having an entire village despise you.

The next day brought new light on the situation in the form of Ruffnut Thorston. The female half of the twins dragged Hiccup in between two houses on his way back home, hurriedly whispering for confirmation of what Astrid divulged to her.

"So, how about that kiss, hm?" Ruffnut leered at Hiccup, snickering at his reddening cheeks.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he huffed indignantly, unamused.

"You know _exactly_ what I'm talking about."

"All right," Hiccup grated, "If you're here to slander Astrid like everyone else-"

"Hold your dragons, string-bean. I'm just curious if what Astrid told me _in confidence_ is actually true or not," she baited, a determined glint in her eyes.

Hiccup laughed out of impatience and threw his ams up, clearly past the point of tolerance, "I haven't the faintest idea of what she said, considering I haven't spoken to her since...since _it _happened."

Not to be deterred from her personal mission, Ruffnut pressed on, "Okay, okay, so you haven't coughed up the balls to confront her about it, I get it. Really I do. That doesn't negate the fact that you have your own..." she leaned in, placing a firm hand on his shoulder, before murmuring, "...theories."

"Like I would tell you," Hiccup deadpanned, shrugging Ruff's hand off, "Besides, I have _zero_ experience in the ladies' department! How am I supposed to understand her motives? Clue me in!" He stepped away from Ruffnut, burying his hands through his hair and continued, "It's not like she goes around kissing everybody, so it has to mean something, right?"

She didn't respond, instead choosing to drop her gaze to the ground, shuffling her feet in a very un-Ruffnut-like fashion.

"...Right?" he prodded her, fearing the worst that despite everything, the emotions remained one-sided. "What did she say?"

This encounter revealed to be one of the sparse instances where Ruff felt awkward. The twin made the assumption that Astrid's disclosure of information would be exposed for a web of lies, and that she and Hiccup forged a secret relationship behind everyone's back. That didn't seem to be the case at all, if Hiccup's reaction exhibited any indication. Ruff's intentions of making Astrid eat her own words crumbled. The other girl's declaration fell out of her mouth before she could think better of it.

"Well...she, Astrid, said that, uh, the kiss was more or less a 'show of gratitude'...for saving the village, and all..."

Hiccup blinked rapidly, feeling his knees begin to wobble and resigning himself to sinking to sit on the grass. He controlled his shaky breath and asked, "So...all it was was a simple 'thank you'? That's it?" and finishing in a much smaller voice, "Nothing more?"

Ruff hesitated, then nodded.

"And nothing less."

His russet hair fell in front of his eyes as he stared at his mismatched legs, wondering how worthwhile Astrid believed him to be, or _if _she did. Of course she does, Hiccup scolded himself, he only felt bitter about the realization that Astrid sincerely held no interest in him beyond amity. Ruffnut saw her cue to leave, and as he watched her swagger off, Hiccup could not help but try to rationalize things.

Astrid always took her emotions to the extreme. If she happened to be angry, confused, or exasperated, she resorted to punching and kicking as a means to get her message across. As Hiccup continued to twiddle his thumbs, he came to the conclusion that it could quite well be the same situation for gratitude and appreciation - although it resulted in a more loving reaction. He didn't feel hard-pressed to speak to Astrid about it, though; if he could put up with her punching him, he could undoubtedly handle her kissing him. That phrase still sounded foreign in his musings, and he quickly dispelled it as he trekked off to his original destination.

Astrid certainly did not make it any easier on him or his emotional attachments as the moons passed. Hiccup became the recipient of two more intoxicating lip-locks with the blonde-haired girl; once during Snoggletog, and another after the Thawfest closing ceremony. He chose not to ask her anything about these random outbursts of affection, since his logic revealed to be sound, if slightly off-kilter.

Exuding tenderness demonstrated her gratitude to Hiccup for bringing the village's dragons back to Berk, excluding his, and for throwing the final dragon race so that Snotlout would win, because Snotlout preserving his dignity exceeded in priority over Hiccup beating Snotlout. Nothing more, nothing less.

Feeding the selfish portion of his mind, Hiccup obligated himself to question why Astrid didn't kiss him more often. Not that he wanted her lips all over his - of course not - but he did indeed rescue her numerous times on some of their adventures, and yet she never rewarded him for those. Neither did he idealize himself as entitled to romantics with his best friend, the person he bonded with the most within their age group; the problem became clear as Astrid's alternating pattern of intimacy and indifference.

The village rumors detrimentally exacerbated their societal complications. Whenever Astrid heard even remote tell-tale gossip concerning a budding young love between herself and the village hero, she scattered those thoughts immediately, falling back on her safety net that she could thank her _friend _in any way she desired.

Thus, over a full year since his defeat of the Red Death, the chief's son ascended from zero to hero, gained the moderate acceptance and respect of the general population, and established two best friends in a girl and a dragon. Everything finally seemed to be turning up Hiccup, after his life desperately needed an anchor of contentment to hold him fast.

Little did Hiccup know that an earthquake erupted out in the ocean of his future, and it would only be a matter of time before the life-altering tsunami of drama came crashing upon his scenic beaches, drenching all in its path with depression, fury, and tumultuous agony.

† • † • †

The inconsistent and impulsive reactions of Astrid Hofferson muddled the thoughts of another besides Hiccup Haddock; the rigid female Viking herself also managed to become caught in a maelstrom of emotional suffering. The day that the talking fishbone trumped her in dragon training she would forever remember as the day when she experienced every conceivable feeling.

She arose that morning determined, prepared to put Hiccup in his proper place - inferior to her. Don't misunderstand her; Astrid did not hate the pathetically poor excuse for a chief's heir. She considered him a nuisance, creating unnecessary and costly accidents wherever he graced his presence, and a weak child with no hope for heroics. However, her opinions of Hiccup didn't equate to publicly bullying and harassing him - Astrid could not condone that behavior. That is why she preferred to ignore him and treat the boy with indifference, meanwhile focusing vigorously on herself and her training. Astrid figured the rest of the village should follow her example, but alas, they did not, and she left it at that. Hiccup's estrangement did not deserve her pity.

Afterward came the grueling weeks of dragon training, and Astrid's sudden fall from stardom. Her indifference morphed into rage and jealousy as the insolent boy bested her time and time again in the Kill Ring, and the spectators swarmed the stands in droves to watch _him_ instead of _her_. The former stand-out bristled with impatient fury each day the roar of the crowd cheered for Hiccup, for some reason hopelessly star-struck with his methods - even though the muttonhead never brandished a single weapon in his "victories".

Therefore, on the morning of the semi-final, when Gothi would decide the victor, Astrid stewed in a feverish haze; the bloodlust seized the blonde beauty with a viselike grip. It would be all for naught, as the auburn-haired usurper defeated the Gronckle with only his hands and secured himself the opportunity to kill the Monstrous Nightmare in front of the village. That final blow became the last straw.

The disgraced teenager resolved to get to the bottom of this fishy turn of events, and she would be ready to do anything, no matter what. Without further delay, Astrid stalked her prey into the forest, sneaking close behind to ensure she did not lose him again. They ended up in a tranquil cove - an ideal place to illicitly train in secret and avoid disruption Astrid mused.

Hiccup's private mentor being of an entirely different _species_, let alone the Vikings' sworn enemy, came as an unexpected jolt. In an instant, her rage boiled into flabbergasted disbelief and overwhelming disgust. On top of this heinous discovery, the traitor and his _steed _kidnapped her and forced her to choose between falling to her death and climbing up and riding that devil with him.

Pushing through her trepidation, she clambered up onto the dragon behind Hiccup. Her disbelief ebbed into a sense of apprehension and dread, which became substantiated as the beast began bucking and diving and spinning through the skies over the sea stacks and churning seas. Later, Astrid would admit to herself - and only herself - that that proved to be one of the most harrowing experiences of her life, and one in which she became genuinely afraid _for_ her life. She clung to Hiccup, on the verge of tears, until desperation consumed her as she screamed out a sincere apology and pleaded to the Haddock boy, and then suddenly everything changed.

The closest she could describe flying on the back of the Night Fury with Hiccup would be sublime. For the first time in years, Astrid's heart leapt with joy as she held her arms aloft and allowed the moisture of the fluffy clouds to condense on her hands and face. They flew well past the setting of the sun, admiring the Northern Lights that shimmered and sparkled overhead in a radiant display of magenta, cyan, and lime.

Eventually, Hiccup directed Toothless to soar over Berk, and Astrid fell in love with the view. All her life she traipsed the paths of the village, roaming in between the houses and across the fields; never in her dizziest daydreams did the blonde ever conceive she would be able to gaze on her beloved home from the _sky_. The roaring fires burning in the homes like tiny candle flames danced merrily, and Astrid forgot herself entirely. She actually snuggled closer into the gangly boy's back and rested her chin on his bony shoulder, unable to stop smiling.

Astrid now knew the meaning of awestruck.

Following an unexpected trip to the dragons' nest, the trio fluttered back into the cove, their minds racing with the night's events.

"No, no, it totally makes sense. It's like a giant beehive. They're the workers, and that's their queen. It controls them," Astrid rattled on, sliding off the dragon's back before turning to dash off, "Let's find your dad."

"No, no!" Hiccup called after her, causing her to stop as he ran up behind her, "No, not yet. They'll kill Toothless. No, Astrid, we have to think this through carefully." He started walking back over to Toothless, leaving the girl gaping.

It shocked her to say the least, but her annoyance surmounted her thunderstruck quiet.

"Hiccup, we just discovered the dragons' _nest_, the thing we've been after since Vikings first sailed here!" Astrid exclaimed, at a complete loss for the boy's ridiculousness, "And you want to keep it a secret, to protect your _pet dragon_? Are you serious?!"

At her outburst, Hiccup spun on his heel to face her, a stoic determination etched across his face, and simply replied, "Yes."

Astrid couldn't put a finger on the reason, whether it stemmed from the plainness of his answer, the steely glint in his eyes, or the all-around resolute glare he bore into her, but the manner of his response resonated deep within her. The scrawny boy finally exhibited the first quality of leadership that colored him as Chief Stoick's son - loyalty. Although, not for his father, nor for his tribe; he pledged his allegiance to not abandon nor risk the life of his first friend. With that, Hiccup unintentionally gained Astrid's wholehearted respect.

"Okay," she conceded, her demeanor falling into worry, "Then what do we do?"

Hiccup turned away slightly, having that same question buzzing in his head even before their return to the island. He appreciated her saying _we _and not _you_.

"Just give me until tomorrow," his nasally voice sounded deeper and more matured in his anxiety, "I'll figure something out."

"Okay," Astrid agreed. In that instance, as her eyes raked over Hiccup's thoughtful expression, she rather irrationally remembered that the weedy boy practically _kidnapped_ her before accidentally taking her on a, dare she say it, romantic flight. Astrid didn't want him thinking he could do that all the time even if she admitted, in retrospect, how much she treasured the exhilaration from it; thus, she slugged him in the arm and stated, "That's for kidnapping me."

Hiccup shook his head, scowling briefly, before looking baffled back at Toothless while gesturing to Astrid as if to ask, _'What, you're not going to do anything about her hurting me now?'_ The dragon merely warbled, shook his own head as well in a _'I've done my part. You deal with her.'_ fashion, and resumed lapping from the lake.

However, Astrid ascertained that the fault for Toothless careening thousands of feet in the air did not rest solely on Hiccup's shoulders, and he did give her a new perspective of the village, of dragons, and most importantly of himself. She wanted to thank him for that, although unsure of how she should express it.

A handshake felt excessively stuffy and formal for thanking another peer.

Anything violent would be off the table, such as punching or kicking, because that would send the wrong message.

Offering a hug could be a possibility, but she went against it for she figured it would make her gesture seem intimate; she valued her sense of personal space.

As if in answer to her dilemma, a memory surfaced to the forefront of Astrid's mind:

_She resided in her usual seat at the table; Astrid's legs dangled over the edge of her chair, still not yet tall enough to set her feet on the floor. Not a pertinent problem for the child, for she barely surpassed eight winters in age._

_Astrid's father, Halvard Hofferson, sat directly across from his daughter, digging away at his dinner of mutton and bread. An undeniably large man, Halvard boasted rippling muscles in his arms and torso as his thick blond hair fell to his shoulders, blending in with his trimmed mustache and beard. Reaching an impressive six feet and seven inches, he towered over most of the other villagers; only Stoick the Vast stood taller. They didn't call him Halvard the Stalwart for nothing._

_Astrid picked at her food, peering at her father through the bangs which shielded her forehead. Halvard, noticing his little girl's intense gaze on him, looked up from his plate, soft sapphire eyes twinkling as he winked at Astrid. She grinned, her gapped teeth shining brightly, except for the missing top incisor she lost while fighting Snotlout the day before._

_The back door opened, a gust of wind blowing into the warm interior, and Ragnfrid Arnardottir bustled in, laden with foodstuffs from the marketplace. Astrid's mother, Ragnfrid - or Ragna for short - capped her figure at just over six feet, uncommonly tall for a Viking woman, and kept her long, brunette locks tied in a bun. Over the bun she wore a traditional headcovering, to fight off the bitter winter chill outdoors._

_Ragna hurried over to the kitchen area, visibly shivering as she set down her burden on the counter. Rubbing her arms, she glanced over at the fire in the hearth, which dulled to faintly dying embers, most of the wood consumed for some time in her absence._

_"Hal, could you be a dear and fetch some more wood for the fire?" Ragna inquired sweetly, already in the process of putting away her purchases in their respective cabinets._

_He tossed his bread onto his plate, heaved himself up and stretched his burly arms before rumbling, "Sure thing." Halvard then lumbered out the front door, returning moments later with an armful of firewood. Dropping the fuel into the hearth as if it weighed nothing, he stoked the flames until the room swam in a soft glow of flickering amber again. Hal reclaimed his chair at the table and resumed satiating his hunger._

_Little eight year old Astrid watched with curiosity as her mother smiled softly and waltzed over to her father's side. Ragna hardly needed to bend over when she placed a quick kiss on her husband's cheek and murmured, "Thank you."_

_Hal swiveled his head around to stare fondly into his wife's sepia eyes, slowly nodding in understanding._

The present slammed into Astrid's reverie as she abruptly snapped out of her thoughts. Brushing her bangs out of her face, she flicked her gaze up at Hiccup before downcasting it again. She made up her mind.

In a beat of a dragon's wing, Astrid reached out and grabbed a handful of the boy's tunic and tugged him forward. She barely registered his initial reaction, which consisted of squeezing his eyes tightly shut and hunching his shoulders up defensively, preparing for another violent encounter with her fist. When Astrid's lips pressed firmly against his cheek, however, Hiccup wrenched his eyes open, nonplussed; he didn't expect _that_. As she pulled away from him, Astrid could not bring herself to make eye contact with him - not out of embarrassment, but out of illogical timidity. How could this _hiccup_ make her feel shy? Preposterous.

"And that's for...everything else," Astrid finished meekly, turning her back on Hiccup and stepping away determinedly. She stopped after a few paces and cocked her head to look behind her. He still seemed rather lost about what occurred right then, but Astrid noted an upward curve grace his lips on his boyish face. Seeing that tiny expression of joy caused something deep inside the girl's heart to twang, a taut string subtly plucked and left to vibrate. She couldn't name the emotion, but the only way Astrid deemed to depict it with words resembled her stomach having _fluttered_. That proposal sounded ridiculous though; birds fluttered, not internal organs. She buried her thoughts of winged body parts and scampered off.

Astrid would not feel that fluttering inside of her again until two moons later, on the morning that the chief's son finally decided to quit being in a comatose state. The silly boy scared the yak dung out of her, making her fret for weeks over whether he might wake up or not, and yet there he stood at the top of the steps outside his front door. Even worse for the girl's conscience, it appeared as though Hiccup's voice rang with amusement while cracking jokes about his prosthetic and the fact that _he lost half his damned leg_.

The flaxen-crowned girl sprinted up the hill to the boy's side, and wasted no time in throwing a solid punch into his arm. He deserved it after all.

"That's for scaring me!" Astrid declared over Hiccup's interjection of pain. He wished he could be spared any more wrath, finding no pleasure in his usefulness as a punching bag for Astrid's ire, especially after nearly dying.

"W-What, is it always going to be this way?!" Hiccup bit heatedly, ready to launch into an exaggerated tirade of grievances. "Because-"

In a conscious decision validated by two reasons, Astrid stepped forward and latched onto the front of the boy's celadon tunic once more. She leaned in and silenced Hiccup's complaining by crashing her lips onto his, tuning out the catcalls of the surrounding crowd.

Since Hiccup did save the village and destroyed a dragon as massive as a mountain, Astrid felt justified that his heroics garnered her gratitude, ergo the kiss. A much smaller part of her also desperately wanted the humble boy to shut up.

As Astrid broke away, Hiccup's eyes remained half-lidded in his state of dreamy fogginess. He stared straight ahead as he concluded his statement, "...I could get used to it."

Astrid grinned at his response, to which he smiled back warmly, and the girl discerned her heart clench a second time - that blasted fluttery feeling. She couldn't make heads or tails of the raging tempest inside her bosom, except that it made her uncomfortable. Like she felt gassy or something. Astrid didn't want to think about it. Hiccup may be the village hero now, but he did not have permission to spawn tiny dragons inside her small and knotted gut; it all seemed unnatural.

Okay, she officially lost her marbles, but that soon became the least pertinent of her problems.

Being a village of only five hundred resident Vikings, news on Berk spread like dragon fire. It took mere hours for the gossip of Astrid kissing Hiccup to evolve into common knowledge, with theories of why being tossed around like a bashyball. Astrid's most urgent predicament hailed in the form of another blonde-haired teenager, but her hair divided into three braids rather than one: Ruffnut Thorston.

"OI! HOFFERSON!" Ruff bellowed as she rapidly closed in on her target, who happened to be tending to her azure and gold Deadly Nadder, Stormfly, behind her house.

"What is it, Ruff?" came Astrid's response, poking her head around the stocky leg of the dragon. Ruff caught her by surprise when the female twin bull-rushed her and tried to pin her to the ground. Stormfly squawked in alarm as the two girls wrestled beneath her, fighting for dominance, until Astrid managed to slam her opponent into the rocky dirt, face first.

"What in Thor's name was that for?!" Astrid shrieked, twisting Ruff's arms behind her back to minimize any chance of her escaping. Ruff gave her best effort to glare at her captor, spitting a few loose strands of hair out of her mouth.

"You didn't think I would find out? You kissed _my_ fishbone!" she growled menacingly, disregarding the obvious problem of already being overpowered, "I had dibs on Hiccup!"

"That's it?" Astrid guffawed. She expected something more disastrous, which in Ruffnut's case would mean _less_ disaster.

"What do you mean, 'THAT'S IT'?!" Ruff spat out, "If you're trying to claim him too, then I don't stand a chance!"

A light clicked on in Astrid's head as she scrutinized the crazed girl beneath her, "Wait, wait, wait. You think I _like_ Hiccup?"

"Well, do you?"

"Don't be absurd, of course not! He's a friend, and that's all," Astrid gainsaid, vehemently shaking her head and causing her braid to whip from side to side, similar to a pendulum.

At the other girl's rebuttal, the twin visibly relaxed, her previously tense muscles straining against the superior strength above falling limp. Astrid maintained her seat on Ruff's hamstrings despite acknowledging that her attacker made no move to recommence fighting.

"You mean it?" Ruff asked, a hint of relief breaking through the forced façade of indifference. Receiving a vigorous nod for an answer, she continued, "In that case, you mind releasing me? I can't feel my feet since your tree trunk legs cut off the blood circulation."

Astrid swatted the trapped girl's rump, feigning offense, before scrambling off and readjusting her skewed skirt. Ruffnut flipped over, but at Astrid's offered hand of assistance, she promptly ignored it.

"Anyway, that should teach you from trying to accost me again," Astrid reprimanded audaciously, hands on her hips, earning a snort from the still-seated twin.

"Yeah, yeah, we've all heard you're the _Viqueen_ of the wrestling floor," Ruff drawled, scarcely containing her eye-roll at the girl's past insistence of the terminology, "So...if you don't like string-bean, then why did you kiss him?"

The tail end of her question inflected into a pout, which Astrid chose to actively dismiss as she resumed polishing Stormfly's scales, "It was just a show of gratitude...you know, for risking his life to rescue the other villagers." Her tongue poked out of her mouth with the laborious monotony of rubbing the dragon's side. Not entirely satisfied with that answer, Ruffnut hugged her knees to her chest and furrowed her brows.

"But all six of us risked our skins to save them. I don't see you puckering up to Snotlout for it." She revelled in Astrid's grimace of revulsion.

"He didn't lose half his leg if you remember."

"So it was a pity kiss?" Ruff questioned in surprise, "Man, that's low, especially for you."

Astrid glowered at the girl's persistent interrogation, "No, you yak-brain! What I'm saying is that Hiccup was the only one who sacrificed something in the rescue - he's a hero now, and he should be treated as such."

"You couldn't have said a simple thank you?" Ruff pushed belligerently, much to Astrid's annoyance. Stormfly crowed in agitation as her rider halted her grooming a second time by whirling on the twin.

"Look, I'm expressively impulsive, all right?!" she scowled while crossing her arms, "If you need reassurance, it won't happen again." She didn't know if she could hold herself to that, because although the sensation of kissing Hiccup still felt alien to Astrid, it proved to be enjoyable at least.

Ruff opened her mouth to argue, not at all comforted by Astrid's promise, but at the sight of her eyelids narrowing dangerously over those icy pupils, the twin thought better of it. Instead, she picked herself up out of the dirt and brushed off the loose debris, then jerked her head in quick assent and plodded away. Astrid huffed as she watched the other girl depart, noting the subtle skip in her step as her silhouette vanished around a corner.

A sharp prod in the small of her back recalled Astrid's attention to her interrupted activity, the impatience of the Nadder unmistakeable via the flustered chirping.

"Sorry girl, I'll finish you up now. How about a fast lap around the island afterward?" Astrid cooed, wanting to appease her vain dragon. Stormfly chortled in agreement, lifting her wing so her blonde girl could finish polishing her dull flank.

It didn't take long for the blonde to break her promise to Ruffnut - twice. Both incidences saw the female twin hunting down Astrid, and then proceeding to badger her with accusations like "disloyalty" and "encroaching on her territory". Since when did Hiccup become some land to be conquested? Nevertheless, the resilient teenager referred to her original excuse for smooching the chief's son; nothing more than a demonstration of Astrid's appreciation.

A thought struck Astrid as Ruff incessantly harped at her - between Ruff's protective nature over Hiccup and her adamant affections for him, why didn't she make her move yet? Inquiring this of the Thorston returned a wrinkled nose and a twisted scowl, accompanied with her blunt retort, "I have."

Oh. _Oh_.

No wonder the girl's wistfulness soured into something similar to pining exasperation. According to her, whenever she attempted to get the clueless boy alone with her, he would stutter out some half-baked excuse before fleeing the area - and the ground - atop of Toothless. His latest reasoning for abandoning Ruffnut consisted of needing to eat supper; this occurred shortly after breakfast.

Astrid felt a twinge of guilt for her friend, but she would never admit it. If Hiccup did not want Ruff's attention, she supposed it remained his prerogative to refuse it. Why he would though persisted to be an intriguing mystery.

Maybe he kept his affections reserved for someone else in Berk.

† • † • †

As the only Night Fury in the archipelago, Toothless established himself as extraordinarily unique many winters ago. His sleek ebony scales camouflaged the dragon against the midnight sky, with only the winking of the stars to betray his position. His sharp ivory teeth retracted to grant his fire blasts unimpeded passage in hitting their marks with pinpoint accuracy and precision. Eight aerodynamic ear plates encompassed his triangular head like the mane of a lion, spanning from the base of his jawline up, behind his zygomatic arches and meeting at the pinnacle of his skull. When deployed, these flaps disrupted the surrounding airflow and generated his characteristic whistling screech.

And, as fate would have it, the dragon lost his left tail fin upon being miraculously shot out of the air by a Viking runt. Despite his grounded state grievously injuring his vanity, Toothless learned to cope, and fortunately his patience paid off - his imminent killer not only set him free, but also helped him fly again.

The Night Fury swelled with gratification when he evaluated his two most distinguished attributes: his qualities of keen observation and attentive audition. After the day when Toothless placed his snout in Hiccup's outstretched palm and formed their forbidden friendship, the boy began to open up to him more, including discussing topics which involved his savage village. His new friend also spoke in an enraptured manner about a certain "Astrid".

Toothless prided himself in being one of the most intelligent species of dragon; he immediately recognized his rider's infatuation with this Viking girl. Hiccup's body exhibited many physical reactions that the dragon previously observed from the interactions of other animals: dilated pupils, accelerated heart rate, and his olfactory sensed a distinct change in the boy's scent. However, from Hiccup's dejected pining, Toothless understood the haughty girl did not give Hiccup the time of day - nor the time of night, nor any time whatsoever for that matter. She ignored his boy, and that fact alone qualified her as being as despicable as the rest of the tribe.

It came as no surprise that the dragon seethed with anger upon seeing this "Astrid" in his cove with his rider, and charged her with protracted teeth when she assaulted Hiccup with her feet and her glorified stick. Shortly proceeding introductions, the blonde devil ran out of the bowl, presumably to her village, and Toothless snorted his approval when the aggravation left. He couldn't be bothered to care, even if his boy did. Of course, Hiccup formulated his own ideas as he climbed into the saddle and urged the dragon to follow her.

The pair ended up snagging the escapee and tossing her into the limbs of the tallest tree. Toothless eagerly wanted to leave the brat there, stranded in the foliage canopy, and became disgruntled with Hiccup's intentions to convince her to climb onto _his_ back and have _him_ fly her down to solid ground. The mischievous Night Fury decided he refused to allow this "Astrid" off the proverbial hook so easily; she hurt his tiny friend and would suffer his strategic admonishment.

Before his rider could take evasive maneuvers, Toothless shot vertically skyward and delighted in the shrill screaming coming from the girl. It didn't matter how much Hiccup altered his tail fin throughout the dizzying journey - the dragon flew with no destination, and only one objective.

This Viking girl would apologize to his boy if her life depended on it, because at the moment the possibility inched closer to reality.

A few chaotic minutes passed until Toothless heard the magic word ring out behind him: "sorry". He knew that Norse word equated to an apology, for he listened to Hiccup use it repeatedly during his morose soliloquies. The crack in "Astrid's" voice confirmed to the dragon of her sincerity, and so he, somewhat reluctantly, snapped his wings wide and halted the erratic flight.

Toothless' unyielding stubbornness persuaded him to not fully comply with his boy's wishes, as he took it upon himself to aid Hiccup in his mating endeavors with the female passenger by gently gliding higher into the clouds.

Eventually, the dragon's ears picked up the almost inaudible gasps of awe and admiration from the girl. Now that she finally quit being such a dolt, he could relish in the knowledge of "Astrid" enjoying the sensations cascading all around her.

As Berk's fires danced beneath them, the Night Fury detected one of the hearts pounding above him skip a beat. Burning with curiosity, Toothless swiveled his head to the right, and upon seeing their faces alight with bliss, flashed a toothy grin at the Vikings. The girl wrapped herself tighter around Hiccup and nestled her chin into his shoulder, causing the other heart to skip. Her entranced expression could be summed up with one word: content - and for that, Toothless smugly congratulated himself.

Later that night, the band of adventurers returned to the welcoming basin which the ebony dragon called home. The two teenagers trotted off a short way, deep in discussion, providing Toothless the chance to quench his thirst from the lake. From his peripheral, he spied the girl punch his boy in the arm; the dragon didn't react, no longer deeming "Astrid" as a threat on account of her sharing in the wonder of their secret.

Nonetheless, that didn't seem to resonate with his rider, as he afforded his friend a dumbfounded glower. Toothless simply responded with a bemused snigger.

Right as he dipped his muzzle into the water, a fast blur of motion reverted his attention back to the Vikings. The girl...O Smaug's scales, she attached her mouth onto his boy's cheek! She appeared to be blantantly eating his face off!

Toothless would not let this "Astrid" gnaw on his tiny friend, and almost intervened to separate them, but she released the boy before he could. That's when he realized Hiccup never made any attempt to escape her clutches, and neither did he call for help. In fact, he could hear the faint sound of Hiccup's heart speed up, and the familiar aroma of attracted stimulation waft to his flared nostrils.

Toothless surmised one conclusion from what he witnessed - Vikings practiced cannibalism as a mating ritual.

The animal kingdom revealed itself to be familiar with this concept in the past. The vigilant dragon played spectator to a pair of black spiders mating, and post-coitus the larger female ensnared, killed, and consumed her male counterpart. Toothless hoped that that wouldn't be Hiccup's fate as well if the girl decided to copulate with his rider; he needed the boy to be able to fly.

The dragon became unsure about the accuracy of his summation, however, when he didn't smell any pheromones being emitted from the blonde. Hiccup's fragrance practically engulfed him, and Toothless determined it failed to affect her - until she jogged away. His ear flaps perked forward when he heard the brief quickening of the retreating girl's heartbeat. He wished that meant his boy made a positive impression on her; Toothless would not be giving free rides to every potential mate his boy became smitten by.

He would have to excise a toll if it came to that. A ten percent fish tax at supper, no exceptions.

† • † • †

* * *

**A/N: **Thank you for reading, and I would greatly appreciate it if you left a review! I created a progress report for this fic on my profile that I update regularly, out of courtesy for my readers. Next chapter will get the ball rolling on the plot, initiated by some Hiccup/Stoick tension, so make yourself at home because this story is far from over! Diskonnekt out.


	2. Chapter Two

**A/N:** First and foremost, I am flabbergasted at the response the maiden chapter garnered - I'm truly honored! As such, I would like to share my deepest gratitude to everyone who followed, favorited, or reviewed! It's a great motivator and drives me to keep writing so that you receive my best narrative efforts. I apologize for the copious details and the meager remnants of dialogue of the first chapter, but I needed to elaborate on the characters' reflections before I delved into the first act's plot line. Accordingly, here is the introduction for that, with a moderate helping of Hiccup and Toothless shenanigans.

**Disclaimer:** I hereby acknowledge that the rights to everything for the How to Train Your Dragon universe continue to elude my grasp - ergo, all credit is given to whom it is due.

* * *

_Chapter Two_

"Exorbitant Expectations"

† • † • †

Winter. In more rational parts of the world, it endured no longer than twelve weeks and never escalated further than "moderately aggravating". These areas also benefitted in having all four of the seasons to cyclicly look forward to with zeal throughout the year: winters thawed into soggy springs; which scorched into sweltering summers; which decayed into crispy autumns; until the predictable circuit came full circle and froze back into blizzardous winters. Regrettably, this process of revolving weather patterns did not pervade into the intemperate climate of Berk and the hardy Vikings who dwelled there.

The island of Berk struggled for nine moons of the year trudging through various degrees of winter, from a light chill nipping one's nose to cataclysmic avalanches of snow that could give one frostbite on the spleen. The single saving grace from the bone-chilling storms of hazardous precipitation and panoramas of dormant forests snuck by as a vile imposter of summer, a brief three moon respite which momentarily invigorated the isle's voluminous wilderness into bloom.

For Hiccup, he despised winter and the frigidity that accompanied it, the vindications for his abhorrence of the snow saturated season starting in his youth and gradually expanding into the present. He hated the feeling of subzero desolation seeping through his pores and into his chattering bones, the very warmth within his body being stolen away. He hated the deterioration of life that stripped nature of its comforting serenity, leaving behind exposure of nakedness and vulnerability to the elements in its wake. He hated the isolaton that stemmed from the ice setting in the ocean and the powdery snowdrifts mounding like desert sand dunes, severing communication with Vikings beyond the horizon and right next door. Most significantly, Hiccup hated how the glacial numbness seared the nerves of his amputated left leg, a scalding cattle prod of ice burning beneath his flesh without any visible trace.

Unfortunately for the auburn-haired teenager, that time of year lurked on the outskirts of cognizance, winter's spindly pallid fingers caressing the Barbaric Archipelago in its entirety with stiff breezes and sporadic flurries. Devastating winter reared its hideous head and bared its vicious fangs on Berk's doorstep, the prospect of pouncing on the unsuspecting Hooligans at the first opportunity more than appetizing. Hiccup withstood the icy harshness of his home's climate for one lone gratification - dragonback flying across the aerial canvas, excavating the pillaring clouds with feats and maneuvers he once believed only the birds could accomplish.

Hiccup's mirth inundated when he soared in the skies over Berk astride his faithful Night Fury; there proved to be nothing else which elevated the boy's spirits quite like the brisk wind whipping his face and disheveling his mop of hair. His elated glow beamed particularly luminous one fateful morning as the flying ace duo rocketed in and out of the castles of cumulus clouds, the sea stacks jutting from the restless waters far below them, mere miniatures of their true glory. Hiccup emitted a resounding whoop following a perfectly executed tuck-and-roll, an aerobatic masterpiece that, one among many, came as second nature to the pair.

In a full year since the conciliation of Vikings and dragons, the chief's son eventually began to exude traits of delayed physical maturity. Well into his sixteenth year of age, Hiccup found himself in the middle of a growth spurt, sprouting shy of half a foot in height and packing a whopping thirty pounds onto his rangy frame. Of course, the majority of his newfound weight could be ascribed to the toned and thinly corded muscles in his arms and core which twisted and knotted into genesis from the extensive amount of time he spent flying with Toothless. The wind shear abused his pale face and painted a vermilion flush amidst his freckles as the shadow of stubble on his jawline tingled relentlessly from the chilly blasts. Hiccup scratched the underside of his dragon's ear plates, directing him to glide towards the gnarled silhouette of the lonely mountain which overlooked the village, a tapering skyscraper against the heavens.

"All right, bud!" Hiccup's shout penetrated through the roaring gale of the wind, "You think we can finally nail that double corkscrew?"

Toothless screeched a cry of assent, throwing his head forward with resolve for the undertaking as they neared the foot of the towering spire, the Mead Hall carved out majestically into its side. Upon reaching the bottom beautified with sparse rock formations and broken tree lines, Hiccup clicked their prosthetics into position three, collapsing the fake tail fin halfway and banking left around the mountain. Rising higher into the sky, the duo's turning sharpened as they rounded the barren contour guide of the land mass, close enough that Hiccup could stretch out his arm and drag his finger pads through the dirt if he desired.

The dirt petered off into a snowcapped peak before elongating into a pinnacle which the boy and his dragon circumnavigated with continuously shrinking circles, steadily accumulating speed during the ascent. Having mustered enough momentum for the finicky maneuver, they reached the apex of the peak, and Toothless cut away vertically into the air, maintaining the stomach-churning tight spin in likeness of a rotating top.

"Yeah! Come on, bud!" Hiccup cheered encouragingly to the dragon splitting the overhead sky, a fire-breathing onyx projectile slicing the stark morning brilliance, "Ready for the drop!"

At his command, Toothless fanned his wings out a fraction, allowing the gusts of wind to billow around him and stall their ascension towards the clouds. Reacting simultaneously, Hiccup switched their connected stirrup into position four, reclosing the tail fin and decelerating the corkscrew spiral until they lost all essential power and hung suspended in midair for an extended, gravity-absent second. The Night Fury let loose an exhilarated warble at the highest altitude of their climb and blasted a violet plasma bolt into Valhalla, marking the halfway point of the trick.

"Yahoo!" Hiccup chanted gleefully, feeling the pull of gravity begin to take effect and pull the pair of daredevil flyers back to Midgard.

Toothless flipped backwards, pelting downward with the snowy cap of the spire in his sights, taking care to sustain a perpendicular angle to the horizon. He deployed four of the eight flaps which encompassed his spearpoint head, immediately piercing the void silence with his infamous whistle. Hiccup crouched lower in the saddle by raising his backside and squinting his eyelids against the rushing air currents, rerouting his concentration from the first corkscrew to the second. They plummeted at breakneck speeds, the mountain below enlarging exponentially as they made their daring approach to the windswept peak.

Two hundred feet.

"Okay, bud, on my mark!" the boy reminded his friend, who expelled a smoky plume in reassurance to his rider, as he tensed every sinew and tendon in his wiry body, "Hold, Toothless, hold..."

One hundred feet.

The anticipation became suffocating while the duo dropped, the will to master this latest aerobatic spectacle unparalleled. The endorphins coursing through Hiccup sent his brain reeling with ecstasy into a high not even ingested dragon nip could produce - if the experiments conducted with the aromatic grass by a hilariously hallucinating Astrid could be trusted.

Fifty feet.

"NOW!" Hiccup bellowed, his indicative order uncannily powerful in his endeavor of being heard by Toothless.

In practiced unison, the boy swiftly shoved his metal ankle into position two as the dragon contorted his arched bat wings, the combined effort tilting the pair in reverse the smallest of margins. The nuance of change revealed to be enough, because rather than crashing headlong into the mountain's snow shelf, the team whisked by the pointed column, descending along its jagged vertical contour. Hiccup hurrahed at their success, leaning over slightly and watching the skewed landscape of the spire's mediocre shrubbery whip past, a goofy grin cracking his chapped lips; it would be smooth flying here until they made their final approach to the village several hundred feet ahead of them.

"Time for the grand finale!" Hiccup hollered, "Let's finish this off in style, bud!" Toothless crooned his energetic compliance and slitted his eyelids in indivisible focus on the denouement of their stunt.

The boy's tightening chest nurtured a bubble of excitement which began to expand, augmenting until it strained against the inside of his ribcage, threatening to burst from the tension. The stimulating adrenaline pumped through his veins in compensation, gushing scarlet rivers that hiked his motivation to unfathomable heights.

Three hundred feet.

Hiccup roared a personal battle cry which echoed off the mountainside, hurdling straight for certain death if the pair didn't pull out of the dive at precisely the right moment. The tiny dots of the village houses grew into discernible structures the farther they dive-bombed, unfazed by the speed which singlehandedly smashed all their previous records, unmatched by any of the other dragons.

Two hundred feet.

Toothless shivered from the unabashed felicity he exhibited as he braced his scaly figure for the impending conclusion to this maneuver. His rider dug his intact heel further into the Night Fury's right flank, the nonverbal signal to prepare for an exceedingly agile flight pattern. Hiccup clutched the saddle tighter, a storm of joy and anxiety coursing within him, raging a war for some form of equilibrium.

One hundred feet.

"Now, bud!" the boy yelled, "Corkscrew and snap roll!"

The giant double doors to the Mead Hall stood erect and august on their port side when Hiccup and Toothless initiated the second corkscrew. Being this close to the ground meant the spiral couldn't be prolonged, but allowed for any unapplied energy to accelerate the momentum of the tailspin. Hiccup plunged the stirrup into position one, full expansion, as Toothless spread his wings and ear flaps to their greatest extent, catching as much air resistance as possible before they barreled right through the roof of the grandest house in Berk, which happened to be the Haddock residence itself.

Thirty feet.

"Come on!" Hiccup implored aggressively, shrinking back in the saddle to help counterbalance the center of gravity and break free from the suicidal nosedive.

Suddenly and without warning, the duo reared backwards at the most optimum angle, zooming out of the perilous death drop and zipping less than ten feet over the chief's family lodging. Hiccup shouted in triumph after avoiding the protruding obstacle and soared dangerously close above the central plaza, where a single figure strode confidently through its heart in the direction of the entrance ramp to the docks.

"That's how it's done! That's how we do it, Toothless!" the boy cried out in unadulterated delight, causing the hulking man in the plaza to redirect his attention up to find the source of the early morning racket.

Hiccup did not need to scrutinize the identity of the man for he instantly recognized him from his size and carriage. Passing overhead, he glanced down to see his father, Chief Stoick, beard swaying as he wagged his head in agitated disapproval of his son's foolishness.

"HICCUP!" Stoick admonished in his thundering bass voice, feigning an aura of authority, considering his son practically lived in the vast expanse of the sky while he could do nothing about it on the limiting ground. This became one of those times when the chief sorely missed his indigo Thunderdrum, Thornado, and everything the two stout warriors used to accomplish together.

The chief's heir twisted in his seat to view his father vanish among the cluttered rooftops, offering a weak wave of acknowledgment to him as he disappeared. Hiccup knew he would be getting an earful later from him when he landed, and that became all the more reason to avoid touching down early. Toothless gurgled with ignorant happiness, beating his wings properly now to regain the altitude they sacrificed in pursuit of their performance; the boy and the dragon proved to be a force to be reckoned with, an unbeatable team of expert flyers.

It would be a dream come true for Hiccup if he discovered a way to permanently stay airborne, away from all the troubles and worries that Berk harbored beneath them. The swelling euphoria, the insatiable wanderlust, and the weightlessness of flying all only strengthened his resolve to cling to the last dilapidated threads of his dissipating freedom.

† • † • †

The sun hung at high noon by the time Hiccup yielded to the scolding voice nagging in the confines of his mind. He coaxed Toothless into a meandering landing cycle, eclipsing the Haddock house in progressively constricting doughnuts, before the pair skittered to a halt on the grassy knoll.

The boy made no move to dismount the dragon, procrastinating on the inevitable as he eyed the front door warily. He shouldn't be this nervous; the afternoon still sang with youth, and his father typically didn't return home from his chiefing duties until the coolness of dusk sank in.

That recurring voice whispered its infinitesimal worries about today - the rash paranoia stemming from the eeriness. It caused the little hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end as a phantom chill rippled down his spine. He rubbed the miniscule bumps prickling along his forearms, praying he could dispell the strange vibes of uneasiness gripping his subconscious. Toothless peered behind him at his stationary rider, patiently questioning his indecision and concerned with his lack of movement.

"Sorry, bud," Hiccup breathed, inclining forward and scratching the underside of the dragon's jaw, "I guess I'm just a little apprehensive."

Toothless crooned apologetically at his boy's detachment, seeking to cheer him up in any way within his draconic power. Hiccup offered the dragon an appreciative smile before slipping out of the saddle, hastily unbuckling the tack and tail and lugging the load to the entrance of his house. He nearly spun around and leapt back onto Toothless, a frantic supplication to escape what might or might not be on the other side of the door.

Squaring his shoulders, Hiccup readjusted his grip on the Night Fury's riding gear and pushed the door open, the metal hinges squealing and as he cringed from interrupting the relative peace, tentatively poking his head through the crack. He swiftly scanned the front room with prying, alert eyes, temporarily immobile at the entrance.

Nothing. The emptiness of the house deafened his eardrums in its silent guard.

Hiccup exhaled the breath he didn't realize he held in, relief washing over him like warm water on _laugardagur_. He crept across the threshold with the dragon tack in tow, heading for the far corner of the room where he stored most of Toothless' necessities. The dragon himself ambled after the preoccupied boy, hoping to weasel a midday snack out of him.

Fishing out a small basket of fresh cod from one of the kitchen cupboards, Hiccup set it down in front of the hungry dragon and massaged his smooth neck while the reptile tore through the food.

"Somebody would assume I starved you from the way you're scarfing that down your gullet," Hiccup laughed, amused by his dragon's famished dramatics. Toothless huffed into the woven container as his singular recognition of hearing his rider mock him, much too distracted by the delectable morsels of cod. The waves of anxiety that lapped on Hiccup's conscience retreated to the ocean of blissful ignorance in his meditative observation of his best friend.

Who is he kidding? Toothless surpassed the status of best friend several moons ago; the two strengthened their camaraderie into inextricable _soulmates_, two puzzle pieces who fit each other without err.

The dragon slurped up the final fish and cocked his snout towards Hiccup, but when the boy leaned down to retrieve the temporary tray, Toothless spared him a gummy grin before lathering the unsuspecting boy's face with a viscid lick and bounding away.

"Ugh-! Toothless!" Hiccup reprehended in an undignified squeak, annoyed that half his face dripped with sticky Night Fury saliva. The slobber beaded down along elastic strands of spit to his shoulder and chest, undisturbed as the boy dealt Toothless a futile frown which read, _'This isn't over.'_

Ignoring the invisible daggers being thrown from Hiccup's caustic eyes, Toothless coiled up at one corner of the hearth, decided in dozing for a few minutes in the meantime. He distinctively heard something along the lines of, "...knows this doesn't wash out..." being muttered from the boy when he stomped up the stairs to his room.

"...ungrateful lizard..." continued the mumbling; the dragon snorted indignantly at the comparison between he and a tiny amphibian - he's a reptile, a _dragon_, not some common garden newt slithering on its belly.

The front door bashed open as the giant frame of Chief Stoick filled the maw, a burlap sack slung over his shoulder and a barrel tucked underneath the other armpit. The resounding crash from the man's entrance caused the grumbling and scuffling that trickled down from the loft to cease instantaneously.

Stoick the Vast, leader of the Hairy Hooligan tribe, dwarfed his citizens at an exhausting six feet and nine inches, cashing in at three hundred meaty pounds of raw Viking power. The majority of his facial features disappeared behind the plaited mask of his illustrious auburn beard, adorned with many braids and ties to keep the clumps in order. He clad himself in an overlarge forest green tunic which tapered off into rhomboidal leatherwork, olive striped trousers, an elegant bear fur cloak that draped across his broad shoulders and affixed to his front by two plate-sized, engraved iron clasps, studded forearm braces, and a thick leather sash wrapped around his stalky girth with a bronze medallion emblazoned with a ferocious dragon. His prominent figure topped off with a bi-horned helmet which resided on the crown of his head, his daily reminder of his long-lost wife, Valka. Stoick's jade pupils quintessentially sparkled in merriment on most days, however the creases that lined his face became the tell-tale sign of the absence of any complacent mood.

Hiccup's father stepped inside completely, kicking the ajar door shut with his heel as he inventoried the interior state of his cabin with a critical eye, assuming his son would be waiting for him. His austere gaze landed on the napping Night Fury, failing to stir in his slumber from the obnoxious clamor that Stoick wrought. The presence of the dragon led to his logical summation that Hiccup should be nearby - theoretically in his loft if those scratching noises provided any indication, the chief pondered.

"Hiccup?" Stoick shattered the quiet atmosphere, the hush concealing that another person skulked upstairs with bated breath and trepidation, "Son? You home?"

The stillness lingered for another moment longer until the steady click-thump of Hiccup's footsteps announced his descent from his elevated lair, the stairs thudding ominously. The boy emerged at the bottom, uncertainty flitting across his face while unconsciously biting his lower lip out of habit.

"Dad?" he echoed, trying to discern the nominal amount of emotion embedded in his father's abundant wrinkles.

"Son," Stoick restarted, "We need to talk."

He reigned in his sonorous voice to maintain a controlled intensity, voiding all possible clues Hiccup could use to calculate whether he should stay for an imminent lecture or cower in consternation in his room.

"Sure...um, what about?" Hiccup pried innocently, following Stoick's movements with a timid stare as the larger man flung the burlap sack on his armchair near the hearth and stacked the hefty barrel on the rising pile which occupied the side of the room. He then shuffled to the dining table, plopping down in his throne of a chair that faced the fire pit and front entrance. With a wave of his hand, Stoick beckoned his son to claim his spot opposite of him.

"So, dad," Hiccup broke the tangible tension nervously as he perched on the edge of his seat, intact foot tapping periodically, "What did you need to talk to me for...?"

The chief expired audibly once he buried his drooping head in his hands, before peaking them in front of his twitching nose in a flawless imitation of a desperate prayer to the gods.

"Hiccup...I saw you, this morning, goofing off over the village and trying to make me heirless doing one of your..._suicidal_ stunts," Stoick chose his words carefully; considering how loquacious he could be in his speeches to a congregation of his fellow tribesmen, the difficulty in talking to his son never ceased to plague him.

The boy, in turn, huffed his resentment to the topic, a recurring discussion he preferred to leave neglected. Here he goes again.

"It's not goofing off!" Hiccup reiterated forcefully for what felt like the thousandth time, "It's _training_, and I've said before that it's pivotal for our defenses-"

"Whatever it is, there is a place and a time for it," Stoick cut him off in a collected interruption, pressing his palms into the table's surface, "And that does not include shrieking around and nearly wrecking the village when you are supposed to be accompanying _me_ down to the docks to welcome the ambassador from the Meathead tribe."

Hiccup's eyes expanded at the reminder of what he unintentionally blew off, mumbling sheepishly, "That was today...?"

"_Aye_, Hiccup, and I have no doubts you conveniently forgot about this as well?" Stoick sternly posed the statement as a rhetorical query, irritation skirting his gravelly tone.

"It's not like I meant to-"

"That's not the point!"

"Then enlighten me, because the gods know you're emphatic about your points," Hiccup challenged sardonically, settling deeper into his chair and folding his arms defensively.

"You know why you must participate in welcoming visiting tribes!" Stoick snapped, his impatience with his son's flippancy brewing in a brimming pool of redundancy with the situation, "How many times do I have to tell you, it's one of the simplest and most basic responsibilities to learn in becoming a successful chief."

"Last time I checked, you still held that _exemplary_ title, Dad-"

"_You_ are the chief-in-waiting!" Stoick growled over Hiccup's dry remark, "_You_ are my successor! I'm putting in every ounce of effort to teach you - to _prepare_ you - for when _you_ take my place as Berk's chief - Berk's leader!" He slammed a balled fist onto the rickety table for emphasis as he finished, "Doesn't this mean anything to you?!"

The charged stalemate stretched between them as Hiccup stalled in responding, avoiding his father's expectant glare and instead focusing on the clenched hand starting to turn a vibrant shade of violet around the blanching knuckles.

"Dad, you know how I feel about being the future chief," the boy hedged, no more contrite in his apology for his subsequent declaration, "I honestly don't think I'll ever be ready..."

Okay, so that may be a half-truth; Hiccup truly believed he would never be prepared to take up his birthright of chief, but not because of his less than stellar self-esteem, nor from timidity with heralding the taxing job - he just did not want to be chief.

At all. Ever.

"Hiccup, why are you doing..._this_?" Stoick rumbled fiercely, his robust jaw grating his teeth within the tangles of his beard, "Why are you rebuking your destiny?!"

"It's not my fault I'm your son!" Hiccup proclaimed with a gesture to himself, a scathing remark that earned a suppressed flinch from the chief, "And if it is _my_ destiny, then how come it feels less like a path of fate where I choose which direction I want to go and more like a chore list of your expectations that you've dictated for me?!"

His father pointed a stubby finger at him, elbow crammed into a sagging plank of the table's surface, "Your destiny has nothing to do with what I expect from you as my son - and that list of expectations has always contained precisely one thing: _obedience_!"

"You can't change who I am, dad!" Hiccup shouted in imprudence before he realized he would reopen frangibly mended wounds, "Remember? All those years you tried, back when I was, in _your_ words, 'the worst Viking Berk had ever seen'!"

Stoick pounded the flat of his palm onto the abused table top and promptly rose to his feet, causing the chair to screech in protest across the wooden floor. Hiccup remained frozen as his father rounded the dividing furniture and stopped to stand beside the hearth, his expansive back facing Hiccup in his solemn vigil of the flickering light. His vast shadow engulfed Hiccup in darkness, and the boy didn't know he could ever feel so insignificantly tiny in the presence of his father. Drumming his fingers on his crossed arms, Stoick inhaled several deep breaths in a vain attempt to restrain his temper. His negotiative voice sounded strained when he addressed Hiccup again, the effort of getting his obstinate son to understand his position clearly taking its toll on his self-control.

"You're the pride of Berk, son, and I couldn't be prouder."

His father's blunt statement astounded Hiccup in its unwonted clarity - straight and to the point. However, that development didn't dismiss what he foresaw Stoick adding to the compliment, having recognized the dour tone from previous disagreements about the boy himself.

Lo and behold, the chief plowed on.

"...but you need to take my instructions seriously, because it does not matter whether you think you may be ready to replace me or not..." Stoick turned around gruffly to lay a poignant look on Hiccup as he concluded, "...because in time you _will_ have to."

The boy saw his chance to push his own agenda, which coincidentally would push the envelope on his father's tenuous patience, "Okay, fine, I get it. But like you just said, it would be _in time_. I can't imagine you'll be keeling over any time soon-"

"Hiccup!" Stoick warned, unlocking his arms and flanking them on each hip, "Don't start. You are my only begotten son, and that means you are the last in the line of Haddocks - there are no others."

"But Snotlout-"

"Snotlout is a Jorgenson!" the chief yanked his helmet off in fractured exasperation and raised his voice, effectively drowning out Hiccup, "Just like Spitelout before him! They may be our relatives, but they're from Val - from _your mother's_ side. And like your uncle would do anything for Snotlout, so will I for you, Hiccup."

Hiccup should feel touched by his father's sentiments for him, but his promise sounded oddly similar to a harbinger guiding the conversation along - as if his father planned to travel this path in their dispute on purpose, leading Hiccup to some unknown _point_...or deal-breaker.

Hesitantly, the boy also relinquished his seat, stepping forward to lessen the distance between them, "Dad...what do you mean by that, exactly?"

"My point before was that you are my only child, and thus only you can carry on the prestigious Haddock name into future generations," Stoick repeated, shoving his helmet back on and drawing his shoulders back to assume a resolute stance, "Therefore, I have decided you will be wedded by the harvest before your eighteenth winter."

Hiccup stared agape, the fingers fiddling with the drawstrings on his tunic going slack; but Stoick dropped one last startling proclamation on his son.

"And you will be betrothed by your seventeenth name-day."

Hiccup's jaw flapped wordlessly, an outpouring of emotions surging through him overridden by his momentary state of shock. He eventually worked his tongue into action, flourishing his arms around in unchecked anger, "W-What?! Betrothed? _Wedded_?! Dad, you can't do this to me!"

"I am your father and I _will_ do what I believe is best for my son!" Stoick rocked the room with his explosive bark.

"So I don't get a say in this, at all?!" Hiccup yelled, gesticulating furiously at nothing in particular, "I'm even less ready to be _married_ than to be chief!"

"And being with a woman will help you to oblige by your responsibilities!" Stoick reasoned harshly, clasping his hands behind his back as he paced before the hearth.

"Oh, right, because there is a sprawling line of girls who are dying to be my wife!" Hiccup threw an arm wide in the direction of the rest of the village.

"Well, if you do not sign a contract with a girl's parents by your seventeenth name-day, I will be forced to arrange one for you!" Stoick bellowed, his patience long since evaporated, "Be grateful I'm giving you a chance to choose someone! _My_ father sure as Hel didn't bestow that privilege upon me!"

"Your father also told you to bang your head against a rock," Hiccup retorted under his breath, the sarcasm intended to further provoke his irate father.

Mission accomplished.

"HICCUP HORRENDOUS HADDOCK!" the chief roared, crossing the room to overshadow his uncooperative child, his temper finally snapping and escalating unhindered, "YOU WILL DO AS YOU ARE TOLD AND YOU WILL NOT DISREGARD THE SEVERITY OF THE CONSEQUENCES IF YOU BLOW THIS OFF LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE I HAVE DONE FOR YOU! NOW HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR?!"

The boy's mouth shrunk to a grim line as he vehemently glared up at his father, wishing that for once he might be strong enough to throw a decent punch.

"Crystal," Hiccup spat bitterly, turning heel and storming up the staircase to vent in his loft.

Stoick's hardened gaze trailed after his son's departing figure until the click-thump of his steps faded into nothing. He inhaled sharply, closed his eyes, and exhaled an exhausted sigh. That discussion didn't go nearly as well as he intended when he contemplated the matter on the docks that morning.

One of the major points he wanted Hiccup to appreciate never left the tip of his tongue, even though it became pivotal in establishing his nonarbitrary decision. The chief retained an earnest desire for his boy to _find_ love, to fall in love with a girl without being forced to learn how after marriage; a scenario that rarely ever transpired within their Viking culture. He didn't give false testimony in saying he would do what he felt would be in Hiccup's best interests - but neither did he want to back Hiccup into a corner, with no avenue of escape. Stoick realized he played his cards wrong, and may have spoiled any chance for redemption with his boy; regardless, he reaffirmed himself in his judgment call.

Stoick acknowledged that no one took him for a fool; he noticed his son harbored a crush on the Hofferson girl. Who could blame him for his hopeful ambitions? All idiosyncrasies aside, at least the boy dreamed big.

Nonetheless, the inherent problem rested in the girl's parents, Halvard and Ragnfrid, because although they respected and admired the chief, the same could not be said for his son. Hal and Ragna persisted in being two of the few Vikings left in Berk who still alloted Hiccup a grudge, even after he ended the three hundred year war with the dragons and brought an era of peace to the island. Their heckling words stung Stoick's pride in his son each time the pair scoffed at the boy, but he couldn't justify himself to confront them and alter their callous opinion of him.

If Hiccup proved to be firm in his affections enough to seek Astrid's hand from her parents, Stoick surmised they could _possibly_ be persuaded - for a high enough price. The chief became aware many years ago that the Hofferson clan couldn't boast any outstanding wealth, and they endured the Viking way of life as a poor family in the lower class. If his son specified a contract adequately affluent - and reminded them he is the heir to the chieftainship - Hal and Ragna might be amenable to betrothing their only daughter to him; a favorable outcome.

Scrunching up his eyes, Stoick rubbed them with a finger and thumb and pinched the bridge of his nose. Guilt gnawed at his floundering conscience, but he already dealt the damage, and he needed to return to the village square and resume the tour with the ambassador, who graciously permitted the inopportune hiatus for the chief to hassle with his son.

He huffed shallowly as he massaged the wrinkles on his aging face, until he collapsed his hands away and met with an unsettling sight before him.

Toothless crouched at the base of the staircase, digging a reproachful look into Stoick with his narrowed chartreuse eyes, growling softly. Evidently, the dragon became none too pleased with how Stoick browbeat his son, and made certain to impart his disgruntlement with the large man.

"Don't give me that," Stoick reprimanded the irritated Night Fury, hands resting on his hips as he stayed his ground, "I know he gets his stubbornness from you."

The dragon demonstrated his offense to the accusation, tossing his head towards the chief in retaliation, _'Hardly. That's all your doing.'_

Stoick grumbled an offhand curse before gesturing a hand to the loft, "Aye, go and see how he's holding up. Don't let him do anything stupid...or crazy." He couldn't rid the feeling that the dragon's penetrating gaze scrutinized every aspect of his intellect, judging him based on his shortcomings as a father and overlooking his titular virtues.

With a flare of his nostrils and a snort of disapproval, Toothless darted up and out of sight into Hiccup's room, where irregular stomping could be heard.

Stoick shook his head, muttering as the dragon scuttled after his compromised rider, "Condescending beast."

† • † • †

The disheartened son of the chief seethed in his upstairs room, clacking and clomping alternatingly from one wall to the other. Hiccup wrung his quaking hands together, popping the individual knuckles in a cathartic release that mimicked squeezing a stress ball. Emerald fire crackled in his downcast eyes, the will to scream aloud becoming more unbearable by the second to bite back.

This is completely unfair! Hiccup's mind raged, thoughts racing in overdrive, the potential for dragon smoke to fume from his ears a growing plausibility as the boy brooded.

Who does he think he is? Oh, yes, he believes he's his father - well he could've fooled him! Come on, _marriage_?! The notion became increasingly asinine as Hiccup paced, the mismatched thumping of his footsteps a comforting lullaby in his frenzied state.

There only lived one girl who Hiccup would ever dare to dream of marrying - and she happened to be the most daunting one to ask if he did. She walked in starlight in a faraway time, golden braid gleaming under the moon; now, she continued to perpetuate that stunning display of loveliness, but rather than the idolized _valkyrie_ that distinguished her as faultless, she became his best friend who possessed her own drawbacks and imperfections.

Astrid Hofferson.

Hiccup understood Astrid's resolve in leading a single life, the shieldmaiden's path to greatness. Not even Snotlout could woo her to fall into the arms of a man - or boy - for the bar of respect she set for herself proved to be unshakeable. But the sad truth that the boy admitted to himself flashed like a lit brazier in the darkness of night: he would never love anyone as intricately as he loved Astrid.

His reverent fervor for the blonde beauty he initially put on a pedestal either simmered into a natural fondness, or bloomed into a passionate love. Hiccup's love for Toothless could not satisfy his yearning of social interactions alone, because they grew into platonic soulmates - not romantic lovers. Astrid filled that yawning void for the boy, although the affections he felt remained unrequited.

Gods, his father made everything so difficult! Hiccup ruminated spitefully. Pausing by the foot of his bed, the conflicted boy wheeled his boot back and propelled it into the innocuous bedpost, a kick of blind fury.

And a kick of blind foresight, as a jolt of excruciating pain streaked up from his stubbed toe to his seizing thigh. Hiccup cried out, grasping the tip of his boot with his right hand while balancing on his spring-loaded prosthetic, his plight aggravated with clumsiness once he registered the predicament commencing below. Hiccup teetered to the left, bouncing up and down to keep his swaying body from toppling. The precariousness of the situation exacerbated as the boy hopped more erratically in his unavailing attempts to not fall flat on his face.

Ironically, he overcorrected too far forward and collided with the floor - flat on his face. He didn't surrender his throbbing toe from his clutches throughout the comical dance, and pinched it harder as he lay sprawled on the floorboards, his rear projecting up into the air like the glorious mountain top he and Toothless orbited that morning.

The flustered boy half-screamed, half-gurgled into the wood, his despair muffled by the distressful position he landed in.

Hiccup screaming with his face crushed in the flooring and his ass bearing semblance to a galleon's splendid main mast, became the fortuitous sight which greeted Toothless when he emerged at the head of the staircase. The dragon blinked at the peculiarity of his boy, having trouble piecing together what the exact purpose of him caterwauling like one of those puny annoying dragons with the buggy eyeballs could achieve.

A devious idea hatched inside the mischievous Night Fury's imagination, a chance to exact his revenge for Hiccup's earlier ridicule. With the stealth of a...well, Night Fury, Toothless slunk around the up-ended boy to his flattened rock slab that functioned as his bed. He curled up clockwise, then arched his elevated tail until it dangled flush against the boy's posterior salute. The dragon whipped his muscular tail back and spanked Hiccup's rear before immediately slamming it down in front of himself, fanning the good tail fin up to cover his face.

The unexpected sting from the abrasive contact wrenched another yelp from the boy's lips. He flung around onto his side, both hands gripping his sore backside protectively and drove a petrified scowl unashamedly at the perpetrator, who found it demanding to preserve his façade of false repose.

"Toothless!" the offended boy chastised the Night Fury, "What in the nine realms prompted that?" Toothless crumpled his tail fin down to reveal a dilated pupil peeking through the mass of dragon, until he straightened it again to hide his face once more. Hiccup could swear he caught a snigger reverberate from the provocative dragon.

Grumbling to himself, Hiccup exercised caution in regaining his feet - _foot_ - and tested out how much of his weight his injured toe could support. It seemed fine, not broken, but definitely would be sore for a couple of days. He wheeled away and began to march over to his bed - a mistake on his part.

As soon as the boy turned his back to the dragon, Toothless stole another glimpse at Hiccup around his scaly shield, and resolved to toy with him a little longer. Before Hiccup could take two steps, the dragon repositioned his tail behind the boy and smacked him one last time, for good measure. The impact sent his rider stumbling, and he would have banged into the side of his bed if not for his acute reflexes and lanky arms, outstretched in the nick of time.

Bent over double with hands thrust out onto the cot, Hiccup cursed in a winded cough and heaved as he swiveled his head to glower at the belligerent dragon anew. Toothless dropped his sleeping act by that time, blatantly staring at his boy with a smug expression.

"So, it's going to be like _that_, hm?" Hiccup threw down the gauntlet, standing and dusting off his palms on his vest.

Toothless craned his neck aloft, barking a series of four throaty croaks in quick succession - his rough imitation of human laughter.

"Gee, bud, I'm feeling the love," Hiccup deadpanned, the pessimistic attitude lost to the dragon in his moment of verbal identification.

At Hiccup's mention of the word "love", the playful Night Fury gathered up a mouthful of his flammable gas, before puckering his lips as effectually as he could and spewing the contents into the chilly, stagnant air. His head traced an invisible path from the center, leftward and back, then the center, rightward and back. Although the sketch hung unrefined in the gap between the two, Hiccup could not resist a grin at what he beheld - a crudely drawn generic heart. The boy passed through the wispy gas as he knelt before his best friend, whose salmon tongue lolled out of his mouth.

"Aw, Toothless," Hiccup simpered, resting a delicate hand on each of the dragon's cheeks and mushing his face farcically, "I love you, too."

Hiccup received another bout of dragon slobber in appreciation, but this time the boy chuckled heartily at the affection.

"Yeah, yeah, you overgrown puppy," he teased, snagging the Night Fury beneath his chin with a learned scratch. The carefree joy wilted in recollection of his argument with his father, causing his ministrations to falter as he moaned softly.

"What am I going to do, bud?" Hiccup inquired of the dragon, for once seeking a genuine solution to his problem, instead of the habitual makeshift plans he became accustomed to devising. Hiccup hugged Toothless' thick neck and spouted in hysterics, "Dad wants me to get married! _Married_! And better yet, he expects me to be promised by the day I turn seventeen - wait..."

The russet pile of hair leaned back as Hiccup stared into the rafters, his mouth working soundlessly while he calculated some dates and numbers in his head. As a seasoned inventor, mental mathematics came naturally to the boy, and he never made an error in his operations.

"Three moons," Hiccup whispered to himself before reverting his attention to Toothless and restating a little louder, "I have to be engaged within three moons, Toothless." He forcibly swallowed the lump in his throat, attempting to quell the amplified anxiety that reappeared with a vengeance. The dragon warbled in commiseration for his boy, not quite understanding what made him so afflicted, but always willing to do anything for Hiccup to be happy.

The teenager speculated his options, and summarily blamed his father for cornering him. Stoick left him with no alternatives except for the longshot - or running away, however he could never do that to his father, no matter how fastidious he became. Hiccup slapped his thighs in defeat as he addressed his dragon, a nervous chatter pleading for comfort.

"If I ask Astrid to marry me..." his voice wavered until he breathed out, "...do you think I have a shot?"

The term "marry" meant absolutely nothing to Toothless, but he could perceive from Hiccup's askance and searching expression that the boy needed reassurance. The dragon closed his eyes and responded with one, firm nod. Hiccup smiled congenially and rubbed Toothless' nose, which coaxed his eyes to flutter open.

"Thanks, buddy," he murmured gratefully, his heart exploding with adoration for the onyx bastion, "You always know how to make me feel better, even about myself."

Hiccup rose and retreated to recline on his bed to contrive in peace, but upon sitting on his still hurting rear, jumped up with a shout. His hands wound their way underneath him again, massaging the assuredly maroon cheeks.

"I'm going to be incapable of sitting for a week because of you," Hiccup chided Toothless, shooting him a condemnatory glance. The dragon chirped sympathetically and then offered a smirk which glinted from his rows of impeccable teeth.

"Oh, great. Dragon pity."

† • † • †

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**A/N:** Again, thank you all for reading this hippopotamus of a story. I hope I conveyed the argument as authentically as possible, Stoick's inciting reactions in particular. This installment should clear up _some_ questions about the overall arranged marriage plot - although I still have the ace up my sleeve. Next chapter will include some Hiccup/Gobber bonding and a dose of Hiccstrid fluff! If you enjoyed, I'd love to hear it in a review. Diskonnekt out.


	3. Chapter Three

**A/N: **I apologize for the tardiness of this chapter, but unforeseen circumstances occurred shortly after the upload of Exorbitant Expectations, which has landed me in the hospital for an undetermined length of time. I want to thank everyone for supporting this story and helping to rekindle my flame of creativity - it means a great deal to me. Each follow, favorite, and review literally puts a smile on my face, no matter how insignificant you might think it is. Has anyone noticed the similarity among my chapter titles yet? Try to figure it out, and have some bonding and fluffiness to entertain yourself. This chapter is partially influenced by HTTYD's first deleted scene, "Axe to Grind".**  
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**Disclaimer: **I still own nothing that I've written and published on this website. Is this really necessary? I'm obviously not making any money off of this story. Dagnabbit.

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_Chapter Three  
_

"Of Marriage and Metal"

† • † • †

Concerning his brideless nuptials, the gods spared Hiccup a scrap of good fortune off of their bountiful table of blessings, for which the teenager raised his prayers of gratitude to Odin, Thor, Freya, and any of the other gods he could pull from memory. Not three days after Stoick handed him his ultimatum, Trader Johann sailed into port for the final time before the ice set in, which would prevent any future ships from docking; a day later and Johann would be unable to access Berk's sprawling spider web of docks, no matter from which direction he approached the island.

Hiccup wanted to design the oath bands out of a new and original metal, not the hackneyed iron riddled with impurities that the village used for everything, from armor and weapons to nails and hinges. He considered using Gronckle iron for its increased malleability, tensile strength, and brilliant luster, but that would involve asking Fishlegs for the correct combination of rocks to feed a Gronckle, which could easily scamper down a rabbit trail that Hiccup preferred to avoid. No, his project's secrecy could not be stressed enough, and disclosing even the vaguest of hints of his plan, _especially_ to Fishlegs, spelled bad news in looming maroon runes for him. Hiccup harbored a kind spot in his heart for the burly encyclopedia of dragons, but the youngest member of the group just could not be trusted with secrets, no matter how recondite anyone presented the information to him - Fishlegs would spill the beans if captors only put out the lights.

Since Johann floated past the sandbars and weighed anchored along Berk's shores, the boy successfully procured an illustrious and exclusive metal from him, which the eager trader called "white gold". The brunet man informed Hiccup that its malleability proved itself to be tantamount to that of regular gold, but the chemical properties of this material caused the gold to appear a much lighter shade, lighter than that of even the finest Gronckle iron. The trader and the inventive boy shook hands on their deal, Hiccup walking down the gangplank with his precious bag of several grams of white gold while Johann stashed away another spyglass, another winch, and a new interlocking pulley system Hiccup designed specifically for his ship.

Over the next fortnight, Hiccup diligently funneled his best creative efforts into the pair of white gold rings and the ceremonial sword upon which he would pass Astrid her ring. Unfortunately for the boy, his increased time spent in the forge meant asking his second-in-command to take up the responsibility of teaching more classes in his absence - the fact that he named Astrid his second-in-command did not escape the cynical peanut gallery in his conscience. As shrewd as a detective could be, Astrid would figure out what exactly Hiccup kept covert while in the forge and not the Academy; thus, caution became his water bucket and any sparks of wheedling for information met with a terrible fate of getting doused. Consequently, as Snoggletog approached less than two weeks away, Hiccup concluded he needed to pick up the pace in finishing his project or else he would miss the deadline he set for himself.

Hiccup's heavy eyelids cracked a sliver to allow a marginal amount of sunlight through, only to scrunch tightly together again while his aching body squirmed into a more comfortable position. He didn't mean to drop off to sleep at his writing desk the night before, but his exhaustion and the relative warmth of his back room in the forge lulled his frantic thoughts into a sluggish stew, until his overactive brain finally checked out for the night. He would never admit it to anyone, but his dreams as of late almost exclusively featured Astrid: Astrid during training; Astrid sitting astride Stormfly; Astrid in a wedding dress...hold on, a dress? Hiccup recalled he never witnessed the blonde beauty in a _dress_ before; the idea became alluring as his lips curved upward in his utopia of sleep.

Now, morning clawed at Hiccup's eyelids, demanding his attention as he twisted his arms beneath his resting head, crumpling pieces of parchment that portrayed various designs of the rings and sword which he partway completed. Outside, a pack of Terrible Terrors raised their voices in musical unison, singing a high-pitched hymn of unknown dragon origin from atop one of Berk's many house rooftops, but Hiccup didn't want to wake up; sleeping in never sounded so inviting prior to this instant.

From his left, the boy heard the curtain partition being yanked aside, and before he could move a muscle, the interloper declared his presence with a shout of surprise.

"Hiccup!"

The blacksmith's apprentice sat bolt upright in his chair to greet a bewildered Gobber hunched within the door frame of the work room, his metal hook still intertwined with the weathered drapery. Finding the boy slumped over in slumber at the forge became a regular occurrence during the previous two weeks, but it never ceased to surprise the master blacksmith, mostly because he could not wrap his mind around Hiccup's newly discovered determination with whatever he seemed to be working relentlessly on.

Gobber the Belch could be described as the epitome of what a Viking should look like after years of grimy war against dragons and other Viking raiders. Considered short for the average Viking man, his brutish figure halted its ascent at a reasonable five feet and nine inches, packed with two hundred and fifty pounds of elbow grease that proved its utility at the forge. He clothed himself in a sleeveless tunic of a faded shade of mellow yellow which tied off at the top with string, a chestnut bear fur vest that hardly stretched across his expansive shoulders, and long, pinstriped trousers which alternated between variations of olive and khaki, drawn up to his buldging beer-belly. His right forearm sported arm band wrappings, while a metal hub capped off his left as a replacement for his hand, which could be affixed with any number of attachments that Gobber created. In addition, a wooden peg leg replaced the man's right leg, which had to be amputated just above the knee after a Monstrous Nightmare ripped off the majority of it. A balding head hid beneath a customized horned helmet, concealing the little smathering of blond hair that his unibrow and braided mustache could not. The unequal serpentine cords of his mustache swung in front of a single, smooth piece of rock in the blacksmith's mouth, which acted as a fake tooth for the one he lost back when he could call himself "young".

"Gobber!" Hiccup parroted his exclamation, sloppily trying to hide his project sketches by bunching them together in a flimsy tower, "W-What are you doing here? S-So early, I mean?"

The older blacksmith eyeballed his apprentice's frenzy with his piercing lazulite eyes in a pensive manner before offering a reply, "Ye rememb'ae I work 'ere, dun't ye lad? Anyway, I 'ad t'ae wake up early t'ae deliver Mildew 'is _third_ cart wheel in as many days. The old geez'ae breaks 'em fast'ae than I can make 'em." Gobber scratched his wide, bristled chin, reached out, and snagged the top piece of parchment on Hiccup's precarious pile, ignoring the boy's interjectory "Hey!" while inquiring further, "An' what 'as gat ye so..._engaged_...with th'ae metal these days, eh?"

"It's nothing," the boy muttered, swiping the paper back and shoving everything into one of his desk drawers, "But I am on a bit of a timeline, so I should get back to work." Hiccup leapt from his stool and stopped in front of Gobber, tarrying so that the older Viking would understand and step aside. Instead, Gobber settled himself into a casual stance by leaning into the door frame, folding his barreled arms across his chest and giving the boy a nuance of a wink.

"Oh yea', 'cause yer slavin' away at th'ae thing, givin' yerself dark, baggy _bands_ und'ae yer eyes, an' leavin' me runnin' in _circles_ is jest _nothin'_." Gobber waited for the subtle hints to sink into Hiccup's brilliant head, but the grogginess which continued to cling to the boy seemed to be disrupting his thought processing.

"Erm, well...it's, um, it's something f-for a...friend. F-for Snoggletog! Yeah, that's it. It's a Snoggletog gift," Hiccup stuttered out, rubbing the back of his neck furiously as he tried to lie his way to freedom. Realizing his subtle prods of being "in-the-know" flew clearly over the sleep-deprived teenager's head, the older blacksmith waved his intact hand at Hiccup in a swatting motion, turning on his heel and trudging off to rekindle the hearth. Hiccup let out a breath dramatically, thinking that that would be the end of their wayward conversation, and followed the hulking man out into the main compartment of the stall.

"Hiccup-"

"Yes, Gobber?" the boy sighed, unsure of what the older Viking would say _this_ time.

"I know 'bout th'ae engagement, lad."

"W-W-What? I have no idea what you're talking a-about, Gobber. Did Big Bertha knock you upside the head again?" Hiccup joked uneasily, sneaking a fleeting peek at the oath bands from underneath the leather he covered them with in an effort to afford them time to cool the night previously.

"Yer father discussed 'is decision with me befur' 'e ev'ae told ye," Gobber deadpanned, doling his abundant amount of patience with his accident prone apprentice, "An' if _I_ were _ye_, I would start takin' this mure seriously."

Abandoning his vain attempts to sidestep the impending conversation of marriage, Hiccup turned on Gobber like a starved animal whose dinner became devoured by a fierce enemy, "You knew about this and went along with it?! I felt you of all people would recognize how much I am _not_ ready to tether myself to anybody else!" Toothless growled softly from his lounging spot upon the stairs of the creaky staircase. "Except for you, bud, of course." The amendment appeased the Night Fury enough for him to drift back to sleep and his draconic dreams.

"'Ey, now, dun't go chewin' mah head off 'cause of yer predicament. Besides, I was on _yer_ side, tryin' t'ae get yer boar-headed fath'ae t'ae change 'is mind 'bout marryin' ye off," Gobber defended himself immediately as he dragged out a shield from the ever-growing pile of orders next to the stall windows, "How else did ye think ye gat th'ae chance t'ae ask whomev'ae ye want before yer fath'ae picks fur ye?"

Hiccup unveiled the white gold rings from their hiding place and, taking a seat at one of the small tables that lined the inner walls of the forge, began etching practiced designs of Deadly Nadders and Night Furies into them. At Gobber's quick retort, he couldn't help but feel indebted to his master for the opportunity he gave him in asking Astrid, "Oh...I-I didn't know _you_ were the one who persuaded my dad to give me time to ask someone first. Truly, Gobber, thank you for that; I don't know what I would have done-"

"Dun't thank me jest yet, lad," the older Viking countered, feeling slightly uncomfortable with Hiccup's sincerity. Being a Viking meant one never became immoderately emotional, except in cases with fury and bloodthirst, "But dun't waste this chance I've given ye. Ask fur th'ae lass' 'and befur' she gets any funny ideas an' runs off with someone like..._Snotlout_." Gobber said the pompous boy's name with unadulterated disgust, at which Hiccup inwardly celebrated.

"Who are you-" Hiccup began.

"Astrid, ye ninny! I may be down a couple of limbs, but mah vigilance is as keen as ev'ae," Gobber rebuked the boy, removing the shield from the crackling fire and beginning to hammer away at the dents and bruises speckling it, "I've seen th'ae way ye look at Astrid..."

Hiccup paused in his intricate carving to throw the man a poignant glare, his emerald pupils dilating from the harsh contrast between his shadowed corner and Gobber's silhouette beside the anvil, framed in the early morning light, "Oh yes, way to get the mood back on track." His sardonic statement didn't deter the older man, since he furthered the punishing situation by wiggling his brows suggestively at his apprentice, riling up Hiccup's cynical side even more.

"Please, Gobber; yes, okay, Astrid is my best friend - next behind you, bud," Hiccup glossed over his apology to Toothless at the dragon's offended warble, "But she would never agree to _marry_ me, even if she was on fire and I had the only bucket of water in town. I just can't believe - no, wait, I can actually. This is exactly the kind of move that Dad would pull on me, and so sudden at that!"

"Now, dun't take it t'ae heart, lad. It's 'is job t'ae be tough on ev'ryone-"

"I'm not everyone!" the frustrated teenager exploded, tossing his arms wide and simultaneously dropping his drawing utensils on the table top. Hiccup reigned in his anger as he puffed out an exasperated breath, mumbling, "But-! But, it doesn't matter. My father is just impossible to please." He turned around in his stool and resumed his needlework carvings on the rings, falling into a disgruntled brooding about the ultimatum.

The older blacksmith stopped smashing at the abused shield to give it a once-over, making sure to not let the idle talk lull into a strained silence as he retorted, "But ye _are_ goin' t'ae ask 'er parents fur 'er 'and, aren't ye? Ye 'ave th'ae largest followin' of tween girls on this side of th'ae island, an' yet I 'ave only ev'ae seen ye 'ave eyes fur young Astrid." He crossed the forged to replace the shield on the burning coals of the hearth to reheat the metal, hobbling along at a leisurely gait as he awaited his apprentice's expected sarcastic remark from the shadows.

"Yeah...yes, I suppose...I mean, if you count asking Astrid directly...as good as asking her...parents," Hiccup replied in broken phrases, not entirely sure of how Gobber would react, and as the larger man spun around to ogle at Hiccup's stupidity, the boy pressed on, "I just - I don't want to do it the _Viking_ way. I want to do it...well, you know, _my_ way."

Gobber's lower jaw unhinged violently and his fake tooth fell out. Bending over to retrieve the piece of smooth rock, the blacksmith shook his head in a sympathetic fashion as he attempted to dissuade Hiccup's outlandish idea, because nothing good ever came out of the youth's ideas, "Hiccup, Hiccup. There's th'ae Viking way - th'ae traditional way, th'ae prop'ae way, 'owev'ae ye want t'ae phrase it - an' then there's _yer_ way, an' _yer_ way makes grown men...uncomfortable." Gobber straightened up, fiddling with putting his tooth back in its respective gap - the leftmost incisor in the bottom row.

"Speaking of uncomfortable, I'd like a new conversation, please," Hiccup mumbled, tugging charred leather gloves on over his calloused hands and grasping a pair of leaden tongs to transfer the oath bands back to the blazing fire in the corner of the stall. He didn't abandon them like he would if he needed to melt down the metal into one of the chipped clay pots; he turned the tongs around clockwise on themselves, desiring an even heating on all edges and yet would remain cool enough to keep the uniform circular shape of the rings.

"Well, I dun't know 'bout a new _conversation_, but I'm sure we can churn out a song that will lift yer spirits, eh?" Gobber declared cheerfully, snatching the glowing shield with his own pair of tongs and returning to the anvil to continue unleashing iron justice on it, in the form of his hammer attachment.

A displeased snort proceeded the older man's suggestion, and Gobber glanced at Toothless to reassure himself that the draconic sounding snort came from his apprentice and not the dragon. He rolled his lazulite eyes because of the stubborn boy; Hiccup certainly proved to be his father's son. In tandem with the clatter from his hammering, Gobber confidentally took the initiative and burst into song, his grinding voice coarse and out of tune from the aridity that cracked his throat.

"Well, I've gat mah axe, an' I've gat mah mace-" Gobber sang brightly until he broke off, looking behind himself and casting Hiccup a sly, coaxing grin to encourage him to join in with the next line of the verse. A brief hush ensued momentarily after the blacksmith quieted, and he incidently also stopped banging on the shield; the teenager felt his resolve to not give in to his master's antics crumbling, and eventually muttered an apology to the gods before raising his own voice, although with less enthusiasm than Gobber exuded.

"And I love my wife with the ugly face-"

"I'm a Viking through and through!" the pair of Vikings concluded the first verse together, Hiccup's tongue still carrying a better tune than the older man's.

"Well, I've gat mah club, an' I've gat mah bludgeon-" Gobber bellowed, diving straight into the second verse, high off of the exhilaration of singing his favorite anthem with his favorite apprentice. Hiccup reclaimed his unoccupied seat in the corner to finish the finer details of the oath bands, which required him to etch the Norse runes into the cooling white gold material.

"And sixty Berserkers locked in my dungeon-"

"I'm a Viking through and through!" the man and boy belted the resounding motif, Hiccup finally perceiving his mood lightening up from the dark murkiness of dread it previously ruminated in.

Gobber could recite the entire song by heart - all twelve verses, each ending with the same proclamation of being a Viking. Hiccup ultimately learned the full song as well, thanks to the numerous years since his childhood days of being the blacksmith's lone apprentice. Contrary to popular belief, the older man's moniker didn't develop from being a frequent nor tremendous burper; in fact, he only properly belched after slaking his drunken thirst with too much ale. No, Gobber the Belch became Gobber the Belch because of his method of delivery when he cried his voice hoarse - he practically belched out the jocular verses, mistuned and mistimed worse than any other crowing Viking in Berk. And there could be nothing better than a poorly sung _edda_ escaping the confines of the blacksmith's forge, according to a sooty and tipsy Gobber in the Mead Hall after performing a rendition of his infamous "One Viking Spectacular".

"Well, I've gat mah bow, an' I've gat mah shield-"

"And the Outcasts' heads staked out in the field-"

"I'm a Viking through and through!"

"Well, I've gat mah sword, an' I've gat mah spear-"

"And in victory's spoils we raise our cheer-"

"I'm a Viking through and through!" Hiccup and Gobber elongated the words of the final verse to add a monumental feeling to the lackluster scenario of their unsynchronized voices cracking in between the clashes of metal striking metal in the serenity of the morning. The pair of Viking songbirds dissolved into an uproar of carefree laughter at the recognition that they sang all twelve verses of the anthem at the top of their heaving lungs, and ergo the caterwauling undoubtedly carried on the stiff breeze throughout the small village. People must have been pondering what in Midgard could make such an atrocious noise. Toothless grumbled with perturbance at the blacksmith's and his apprentice's shenanigans, flopping onto his side with his spine-riddled back facing the anterior of the forge.

Hiccup, standing, but bent over double in his uncontrollable guffawing, wiped a tear of mirth from his cheek when he suddenly heard the clapping of slowly distended applause from a pair of petite hands ring out from behind him. He, along with a chortling Gobber, whirled about to behold the intruder of their happy-go-lucky atmosphere within which they shrouded themselves.

The blatant interruption came from none other than a blonde-haired valkyrie, a smirk playing on her lips as she leaned sideways against one of the horizontal corner supports upholding the roof of the forge. Astrid Hofferson somehow managed to retain her thin figure, gaining a meager bulk of ten pounds in exchange for growing a couple of inches in height; however, the sobering reality remained that Hiccup Haddock now stood taller than her - something the chief's son became quite proud of when they discovered it. The girl's penetrating aquamarine gaze leapt from the apprentice to the master and back once more, analyzing the situation with a stern, yet cordial, eye.

Upon witnessing the source of the clapping emanating from Astrid, Hiccup sprang into action by seizing the discarded leather drapery and throwing it over the pair of nearly perfect rings, enveloping the circlets in their familiar rustic hiding place. He eased out a sigh and praised himself for his quick reflexes, turning back to the literal girl of his dreams with a tentative relaxation crawling up his spine - his lax impression didn't last long.

"What a _lovely_ duet," Astrid complimented in mock admiration, her grin becoming more difficult to suppress when Hiccup's cheeks flushed into a pair of ripe tomatoes and his hand instinctively rubbed his neck. The girl stood framed in the daylight, the sun glowing off her flaxen hair and shining more brilliantly right then than Hiccup could recollect in recent memory; he didn't utter a single word to her, and instead gawked with awe at the angel before him. Gobber clattered his shield against the anvil aggressively, hoping to jar the romantic boy out of his spontaneous dreaming and actually take care of their customer. The impromptu noise did the trick, as Hiccup's lopsided smile slid from his face, the fogginess dissipated from his clouded eyes, and he began stammering to the exquisite girl across the stall from him.

"A-Astrid! Hey, Astrid, h-hello there! Welcome! What can I do for you t-today?"

Astrid's arm wound itself over her shoulder and unclasped her trusted double-bladed battleaxe from her back, giving it a whirl in her dominant right hand while responding, "Hey, Hiccup! Can I get this sharpened? I was about to go train, but I noticed the edges are dull and I seem to have misplaced my whetstone."

The enraptured boy ruefully picked that moment to begin stumbling towards Astrid as well as over his own words, iterating a string of incomprehensible sounds that no sane man would be capable of translating. Taking pity on the hapless boy, Gobber jumped into the exchange with a gleeful grin while setting the renovated shield aside, "Of course, lass! Mah, uh, _manly_ apprentice 'ere will service all of yer needs." The older Viking pushed the skinny teenager in front of Astrid, and then realized the two of them continued to stare at him because of his tactless intrusion into their adolescent conversing, "I jest 'ave t'ae...go..." he himself started fumbling with his words, picking apart his brain for an excuse to leave, "Get...some...yeah, I'll jest step outside." Gobber shrank backwards into the depths of the forge, disappearing through the back entrance and hobbling off to tinker with Big Bertha to keep himself occupied.

Hiccup, personally embarrassed by Gobber's strange interactions and even stranger exit, gestured an open-palmed hand in the direction the blacksmith vanished and merely stated, "Gobber", as if saying his name proved reason enough to justify the man's bizarre actions. Astrid simply chuckled at the boy's reaction to his kook of a metal master.

"So, uh..." Hiccup cleared his throat in the swiftly stagnating air settling between the two teenagers, until he held out his hands to receive his charge. Astrid twirled her axe in her skilled palm one last time before passing the weapon to Hiccup. The axe, particularly the reported dull double-edged blade, weighed a considerable amount in the boy's lanky arms, and although his stature faltered a degree from bending his knobbly knees to recuperate from the ample change in weight, Hiccup inwardly glowed in triumph at not having dropped his crush's most prized possession.

"Okay, one razor-sharp battleaxe, coming right up, milady," he gasped aloud as he lugged the weapon over to the grinding wheel in the center of the outside patio of the forge, near the anvil and the abandoned shield.

"Careful!" Astrid called after him, a stitch of parental worry for her axe in her brow, "That's my mother's. And why do you call me that?"

"Call you what?" Hiccup inquired breathlessly, already busy winding up the stone wheel with the manual lever, his biceps and triceps buldging unnoticed beneath his tunic and worn apron in the taxing endeavor.

"Milady," came the strong reply, and while Astrid distracted herself with grazing her fingers across the various sword blades, spear points, and axe halves which lined the cluttered walls of the stall, she elaborated before Hiccup could answer, "Because I'm not _your_ lady, I'll have you know. I'm _nobody's_ lady."

The reverberating clunk of the axe blade on the grinding wheel became Hiccup's initial nonverbal retort for the girl's heart-wrenching remark, but he coughed unnecessarily and provided a verbal response for her benefit, "W-Well, obviously you're not m-my lady! That aside...you _are_ my friend, a-and you just happen to be...a-a girl-"

At this, Astrid twisted her torso about with her spaulders and golden braid slapping her skin with a clatter, shooting Hiccup a dangerously querying look, daring him to continue with that line of talk. The sudden movement caught the boy's attention, and realizing what he might have possibly implied, his eyes widened in shock and he melted under her stringent stare, feeling compelled to stutter out some kind of excuse to cover up his error.

"I-I-I mean, n-not like that! Believe you me, I would never insinuate you are _that_, I - just - but, you _are_...female...!" Hiccup felt oddly restrained with not being able to use his hands to gesticulate wildly in his anxiety, considering they were preoccupied with clutching at Astrid's battleaxe. During his nervous stammering, Astrid completely spun her body to face the boy, and - Hiccup swore she did it on purpose - strode slowly forward to him, Hiccup only noticing the tiny sway in her hips. Her frosty glower, however, spelled murder if he didn't correct his misstep.

"What am I?" Astrid halted a couple inches from Hiccup, the girl's clean face hovering close enough to the boy's dirty face that they could feel the breath from each other exhales on their skin, "Again?"

Hiccup licked his lips anxiously, taking extra care to not spew any spit into his crush's expectant face, and muttered uncertainly, "Uh...a-a woman?" He scrunched his eyes tightly shut, anticipating his shoulder encountering a violent fist from the girl.

Rather than a violet and amber bruise blooming on his arm, the boy escaped unscathed when he detected a barely audible _giggle_ slip from the girl's mouth, throwing him out of his element. Astrid Hofferson didn't _giggle_, leastways not at an unfortunate time when she should be pummeling her toothpick of an adversary to a pulp. Taking a risk, Hiccup squinted through his eyelashes with his teeth bared in a grimace to a, dare he say it, gorgeous sight - Astrid's face beaming from a small, true smile, with her aquamarine pupils like sparkling water in the summertime's icy meltdown.

"You, sir, are _way_ too easy," her tongue slithered, enjoying the curious effect she caused her best friend and skipped back a step, "...to intimidate." Astrid gently - excessively gently - smacked the boy's shoulder with the back of her hand and attempted to reassure him, "Come on, lighten up, dragon boy. I'm just messing with you. Besides, there's no reason to emphasize that one of your best friends has breasts unlike you."

With that declaration, Hiccup committed an even greater faux pas than insinuating Astrid and he might be an item, as his hormonal brain urged his eyes to slide from the blonde's face down to her endowed chest. Granted, the pair didn't bust her tunic's seams, but that never bothered Hiccup - he liked them small. In a providential turn of events, Astrid's attention already diverted to something on one of the higher shelves, allowing the teenage boy to rip his gaze away from the girl's chest and refocus on the significant piece of property in his grasp. Lifting the blade to eye level for inspection and becoming satisfied with the consistency of sharpness for that edge, Hiccup flipped the metal tool with a whirl of the handle and began grinding out the other side.

One edge down, three to go.

Meanwhile, Astrid sauntered to the battleaxe that hung horizontally from a legion of nails in the back of the forge, near the overlarge bellows which blew air into the coals of the fire. There developed only one problem for the girl as she approached the glinting weapon - someone, Gobber most likely, situated the axe just out of Astrid's reach, no matter how far over she leaned on the table beneath and outstretched her hand. In her fruitless endeavor to pull the axe off the wall, muttered gasps and groans escaped her lips and sliced through the monotony of the grinding wheel's whine, her determination unyielding.

Hearing her small noises of frustration float from behind him, Hiccup tossed his head to the side - inadvertently making his auburn hair flip - and opened his mouth to ask Astrid if he could help her with anything, despite acknowledging that he would receive a fierce negative in retort. He didn't anticipate on Astrid's rear bent towards him while balancing on tip-toe. Hiccup's breath hitched in his windpipe when his mind recognized her tunic riding up the small of her back, revealing a sizable portion of smooth skin and could that be-

The boy's grip on Astrid's blade slackened, and with a startled cry of alarm, the half-sharpened battleaxe shot forward, complying with the direction that the grinding wheel spun and flying forward. Incidently, the grinder happened to be revolving _towards_ Hiccup, not away; so as the weapon departed fom his relaxed clutches, the flat of the axe slammed square into his face. He shouted from the astounding pain, but gravity took effect before he could react with the weapon falling handle first to the ground, where the butt smashed his good right foot and fortuitously his newly healed large toe.

The boy staggered back while he reeled from how fast everything just transpired around him. Pain didn't register from his toe to his brain as far as Hiccup could tell, with his spacing eyes beginning to white out from his head's impact with the blade. Sound muffled all about his pounding ear drums as a frantic Astrid entered his fading view, concern splashed across her furrowed brows and searching eyes. She snatched him by his arms and shook him urgently, but Hiccup couldn't bother himself to care about focusing on her; instead his gaze became glued to her now succulent looking lips, dancing in rhythm as they repeated the same two syllables like a mantra.

"...ic...up...!"

Ickup? Pick up? Pick up what? He would definitely want to pick up a certain something - _someone_ - if that happened to be what she desired, Hiccup's jumbled up mind slurred among the collection, processing, and comprehension of outside signals in its compromised state. His brain seemed to be having more difficulty stringing a succession of related thoughts together as he progressively succumbed to the void of blank space surrounding him.

Sight and sound altogether vanished, leaving Hiccup in a whitewashed world of empty oblivion for several seconds, until eventually a black dot blossomed in the middle of his vision. The world of noises and colors rushed towards him as if he decided to peek through one of his spyglasses backwards, and then someone grabbed his mob of hair and violently yanked back with unbelievable force. He daydreamed that Astrid revealed herself to be the one whose hand caressed his russet hair.

"Hiccup Haddock!"

At hearing his clan name being used, the teenager wagged his head from side to side, blinking rapidly and causing the remnants of his whiteout to disperse. He took in the strained faces of his two best friends, Astrid and Toothless, once he became cognizant of where he resided. Toothless sniffed and nudged at Hiccup's chest, hoping for any sign of positive feedback from the stationary boy; the dragon felt relief course through him when his rider raised his left hand and gave him an appreciative scratch under the chin. Toothless warbled sympathetically at Hiccup's plight.

Astrid would not be as easily appeased, her short temper flaring up from the superfluous fright that Hiccup struck in her with his stupidity.

"Ugh, Hiccup! Don't _do_ that ever again!" the blonde girl nearly screamed and accentuated each word with a stiff punch into his right arm, "And _all_ of those are for scaring me!" Hiccup offered her a weak-willed smile as she glared vehemently up - only a couple of inches she reminded everyone - at him. His large toe throbbed in agony, reminding him that he did accidentally drop Astrid's axe.

"Um, sorry-" the wistful boy apologized humbly and pointed downward timidly before kneeling and heaving the weapon into his gangly embrace once more. The corner of Astrid's mouth curled in an agitated grimace until she spun on her heel and shuffled through some leather scraps on a side counter, allowing Hiccup to replace the thankfully undamaged battleaxe onto the grinding wheel and resume his meticulous work.

A brief reprieve cascaded Hiccup's frazzled mind during the time that Astrid idly fooled around with the mounds of supposed junk on the tables, and before he knew it he laid the final edge of his charge on the grinder. Whenever Hiccup worked on anyone's weapons whom he knew personally, such as his dad or the rest of the gang, he discovered that he never spent as much time smoothing out the kinks or correcting the imperfections of their weapons as he did in comparison to Astrid's valued double-bladed battleaxe. Whenever that marvellous weapon - that _he_ made for _her_ all those years ago - came into his custody, he treated it with the utmost care and respect that a blacksmith would have for his signature masterpiece. The charge's owner, on the other side of the stall, neared the bottom of one of the piles of miscellaneous paraphernalia, and when she removed a considerably darkened tatter of leather from it, Astrid found a magnificent weapon that she should never have uncovered.

"Hiccup..." the girl murmured, eyelashes batting in unfettered wonder, taking the buried weapon with both hands and reverently gliding her finger pads over it, "This...this is beautiful..."

The apprentice spared a glance at his crush to discover with horror that the object she withdrew from the depths of rags and parchment proved to be none other than the ceremonial sword he halfway finished for his impending wedding - the same sword which would hopefully pass into the Hofferson clan! Hiccup decided beforehand that he would forge his own sword for the marriage ceremony, because no matter how much he enjoyed fantastic adventures, he couldn't bring himself to go graverobbing in the crypts for his family's ancestral broadsword.

And Astrid could not have said it any better; the sword dazzled her eyes in its beauty and craftsmanship. The thinly crafted blade and fuller extended for three feet to a sharp point, in likeness of a rapier, made of a purified mixture of iron which he boiled down from old scrap metal. Hiccup designed and created the hilt with the leftover white gold material from the oath bands - the guards spanned an impressively near foot in length, and the pommel a thick, sturdy ball of iron at the butt of the grip which showed the boy's eye for detail with the incipience of runic etchings circumnavigating it. Astrid assumed the runes wrote out a traditional blessing to bestow good fortunes and luck upon the family who owned the weapon, and hence she didn't bother to read what the inscription actually read.

What caught Astrid's undivided attention, though, revealed itself to be azure and gold dragon scale shards that decorated various parts of the hilt and all along the fuller. Specifically, azure and gold _Deadly Nadder_ scale shards. The teenage girl's mouth formed a round "O" as she inspected the marvelous weapon she held, fingers gracefully rubbing every inch of metal. These scales appeared quite similar to those on her own Nadder, Stormfly, the girl mused silently in her mind.

"That-!" Hiccup started quickly, willing himself to remain calm to avoid another embarrassing moment in front of Astrid, "...is supposed to be a secret. Y-You shouldn't have found that."

"It's clearly not meant to see battle," Astrid deduced from her perceptions, "Which can only mean that this is a ceremonial sword... Oh my gods, Hiccup, who's getting married?! I haven't heard about any engagements recently!"

The boy racked his brain for a decent enough lie to slip to the blonde, and reduced himself to the easy way out in fake admittance, "I'm not allowed to say."

"Hiccup," she whined pathetically, always a sucker for the latest gossip that pervaded the village if it didn't include her.

"No, Astrid, I can't."

"I just want to know who. Only _two_ names! You can spare me that, can't you?" Astrid stuck out her bottom lip to feign a pout, but Hiccup had more reason to keep his "secret" from her than the innocent girl could have guessed. He needed to steer this perilous prattle away from _who_ would be getting married and onto a subject not as conducive of lying on Hiccup's part.

"No, not really," Hiccup mentally kicked his backside for the continued lying, "I was sworn to secrecy, and if I were to tell a single person, I'm afraid of the punishments he might have compounded on me. The guy really wants to keep this on the down-low. Besides," he became floored with a look of utter confusion as he thought of a diversion from the current conversation, "How did you know _I_ made that sword, and not, say, Gobber?"

Astrid grasped the grip snuggly in her hand and sparred with an invisible opponent via a series of strikes and jabs before replying pointedly, "Because Gobber, while he is a superb blacksmith, only does the basics in crafting weapons - he pays no dues to details on his projects. You," she whirled and pretended that a second vicious enemy entered the scene to cut her down, "On the other hand, are meticulous, and compulsive when it comes to perfection. You can create things that I could never think to dream of."

The boy slumped speechless over the grinding wheel for a few moments, astonished at the compliment she afforded him, especially about something as ignoble as his blacksmithing skills. Astrid parried off her nonexistent attackers and turned to see a sheepish grin creep onto Hiccup's mouth, and she couldn't help her own smile that mirrored his, while her tightened heartstrings endured another tug and vibration. She never understood what this feeling meant, the foreign experience not commencing itself until after Hiccup ended the war on dragons. Did her heart know, and her brain never became accustomed to deciphering what her heart tried to whisper to her?

"Well...thanks," Hiccup offered, still sporting that goofy grin that never failed to confound Astrid's insides into thinking they contained baby dragons within themselves. The auburn-haired teenager removed the battleaxe one last time from the wheel and held it aloft, providing a definitive inspection of his sharpening work, and approved of what he observed. Holding the weapon with two hands again, Hiccup paced over to Astrid and extended the finished tool out for her to reclaim, with a solitary word on his tongue.

"Trade?"

Astrid contained a snigger and flipped the sword sprightly in midair, catching it by the rapier-thin blade, and offered the weapon out to Hiccup, hilt first. He rolled his eyes at the energetic girl showing off the results of years of toiling through personal training, wrapping his gloved hand around the grip while Astrid snatched her axe away. Hiccup cut through the forge and passed behind the curtain to his work area, returning moments later empty-handed and stopping short at the miniscule frown drawn on Astrid's lips.

"This feels different," she speculated, slipping her fingers smoothly around the handle in a practiced twirl and passing the axe to her other hand without breaking form. She looked to Hiccup with a blank expression and a sketch of askance flitting across her facial features, lending credence to his return to stammering in his desire to defend himself.

"Oh! Yeah, I rebalanced it - tightened it up. Finessed it..." Hiccup explained hurriedly, gesturing habitually and hoping that improving her prized weapon beyond a plain and simple grinder sharpening might somehow impress Astrid. He really began laying it on thick when he declared, "We're a full service outfit here."

"All right," Astrid dismissed, reaching her hand into her side pouch to retrieve some coins to pay Hiccup for his services, "How much do I-?"

"Oh, uh, nothing!" he cut her off, wanting to maintain this affability between them, "You don't owe me anything."

"But you just-"

"It was nothing, honest-"

"I still want to-"

"Astrid-"

"_Hiccup_-" the intonation in her voice rose to a threatening elevation.

"Just consider it on the house!" he remarked in an elevated tone to drown out Astrid's insistence, grinning widely and thoughtlessly adding, "Or as an early Snoggletog present!" Hiccup mentally berated himself for mentioning "Snoggletog" and "present" in the same sentence in front of Astrid, unsure if she would care enough to give him a gift for the festive holiday. The girl didn't seem to notice his face contort with annoyance and fear at his condescending conscience, garnering a bit of subdued relief for him when she didn't pursue the topic further.

"Hm. Thank you, Hiccup!" Astrid sang her gratitude, resuming her survey of her newly repaired weapon as the boy shuffled his feet awkwardly.

She must have liked what she felt from her battleaxe and from Hiccup's rambling reasonings, because the girl eyed the boy shyly through her ripple of bangs before bolting like lightning to his side and planting a soft kiss on his left cheek. Lowering from the balls of her feet, Astrid whispered her appreciation to the stunned boy again and traipsed out of the forge and into the midday sunlight, the mighty warrior imagining herself charging onto a body-strewn battlefield, scarlet blood speckling the tufts of green grass like Snoggletog colors. She didn't ignore the tingling sensation that tickled her lips from pecking Hiccup's cheek this time; instead, she found herself wondering what it could possibly mean and if the feeling had a connection with the fleeting tug of her heartstrings or the flapping dragons in her gut. Her bafflement of the matter perplexed her.

Hiccup looked on dreamily after her while Astrid chopped off the legs of unsuspecting raiders, her axe flying around herself as if it became a third arm, or at least an extension of her two existing ones. She danced through the heart of the central plaza, taking out invisible warriors left and right on her way to the Mead Hall's grand stairway, flushing and prespiring from the exercise this spontaneous training conjured. The boy watched her figure ascend the stone stairs and dissolve into the yawning, dark maw of the hall's gigantic double doors, flanked on either side by a Viking statue with his tongue protruding grotesquely from his mouth.

"Any time," Hiccup murmured to himself, his finger pads grazing over the spot where her lips brushed his cheek, deciding that this encounter could be considered a good omen. Suddenly, a series of throaty croaks floated from the staircase in the back of the forge - a harsh, draconic mimicry of boisterous human laughter.

"Toothless!"

† • † • †

* * *

**A/N: **I don't know how many times I'm going to reiterate this, but I just want to thank all of my readers out there for sticking around while I battle these medical problems and continue to give everybody an enjoyably thorough storyline. Thank you! Next chapter we will meet the rest of the gang at the Academy, and the moment you've been waiting for: the Hiccstrid proposal! I adore my reviewers! Diskonnekt out.


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